Capturing the humanity that war threatens to destroy

WAR HAS A WAY OF ATTRACTING STORY tellers, different kinds at different phases of the story.

- BY SIMON SHUSTER

'I refused to make it about the blood and gore and violence.' ANYA STASENKO, FILMMAKER

Usually the journalists get there first, before the authors and historians arrive to place events in a grander narrative. The artists tend to be among the stragglers, though their works, once out in the world, can have the greatest resonance.

Artists and filmmakers Stasenko and Leontyev at work

The release of Porcelain War, the Oscarnominated documentary about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, shows that the artists have arrived to tell their version, and it is unlike anything the experts and reporters have shown us.