President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi, Pope Francis, and documentary filmmaker Yevgeny Afineevsky received a joint award from the Berlin Foundation, the "Cinema for Peace Award". Volodymyr Obodzinsky, a hero of the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, was invited to an audience with the Pope in honor of the award.
This year, the award is dedicated to the memory of children who died during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to confirmed data, the aggressor country has already taken the lives of at least more than 500 Ukrainian children, three of whom are from Volodymyr's family. Portraits of Volodymyr's son, who was 14 years old, and one-year-old grandchildren Nicole and Denis are engraved on each of the three "Cinema for Peace" awards presented.
At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, a Russian plane dropped two aerial bombs on Volodymyr's house in the village of Yurivka in Zhytomyr Oblast. In one moment, the lives of his wife, daughter, son, and twin grandchildren were cut short. He shared the story of his loss with the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, and from this step began the wide publicity of one specific and very cruel crime of the Russians.
"I thank the Foundation's team, which is filming materials about the tragedies that the Rashists have caused and are causing. If you hadn't filmed my story, none of this would have happened," says Volodymyr Obodzinsky. You can listen to and watch his story here.
One of the laureates of the award, Yevgeny Afineevsky, director of the film "Freedom On Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom", was one of the keynote speakers at the April panel discussion of the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation on the topic "What should Ukrainian cinema be like to win?" .
It should be noted that Muhammad Ali, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jane Goodall, Sean Penn, Angelina Jolie, and George Clooney were previously honored with the "Cinema for Peace" award. But for the first time, two world leaders and one film director were honored with a joint award. And for the first time, the awards are dedicated to children.
The Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation collects the stories of civilian people who became victims or witnesses of Russia's war against Ukraine. Today, there are already 76,000 of these stories. Anyone can share a story by visiting the Museum's portal or calling its toll-free hotline at (800) 509 001.
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