“I admire human legs more than I did before,” Oleksandr “Sasha” Budko can be heard saying in “Front Row,” watching the United Ukrainian Ballet Company perform “Gisele” at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in the winter of 2023. There’s a little black humor in the comment when he has none of his own now, only in the U.S. to begin with in order to receive prosthetics after his legs had to be amputated because of injuries sustained while fighting back against the Russian invasion in his native Ukraine, and after receiving an invitation from one of the dancers in the company who followed his well-documented recovery on Instagram, he marvels at the performance, the very first time he’d see a ballet, though when he goes backstage to offer applause, it’s the company that gives him a standing ovation.
The moment of mutual appreciation is a particularly fascinating one in Miriam Guttmann’s heartfelt film chronicling the United Ukranian Ballet Company’s 2023-2024 tour of the U.S. as many of its members had family still in the heart of the battle. On its own, the company would be a compelling story as 60 dancers who fled for their safety reconvened in the Netherlands for the goal of keeping their cultural heritage alive as their country was being destroyed, but Guttmann shows what a great burden that becomes when dancers such as Violetta Hurko and Vladyslav Bondar have relatives on the front lines, and along with fellow company members Alexis Tutunnique and Iryna Zhalovska, they contend with feelings of inadequacy when they can’t have total faith that what they’re doing is in any way comparable to how those who have picked up arms are serving their country.
The grace the dancers exhibit on stage is in stark contrast to the chaos they experience off it, even in relative safety geographically and in the words of comfort they constantly hear from others that what they’re doing is necessary, from Vladyslav’s father’s insistence that he’s primarily put himself back into harm’s way in his fifties only so that his son can dance, and the constant encouragement of Sasha, as he joins the company in their travels and eventually on stage as they make their way out west, that beyond bringing beauty to the world, they are keeping the story of Ukraine alive internationally. When the impact of images of violence from the wartorn region has gradually ebbed over a long war, “Front Row” offers something different when it presents how difficult it is to keep hope alive, showing that as effortless as every pirouette is made to look that there are so many mixed emotions behind it and the strength to carry on is astounding.
With the film premiering today at DOC NYC, Guttmann spoke about why the film was such an important one of her to make, how the arrival of Budko not only came as a surprise to those in the company but altered the trajectory of her film and how conscious she was of creating images that could refresh a conversation about Ukraine in the international community.
How did this come about?
Lea Fels from Scenery, my producer, asked me to do a film on the United Ukrainian Ballet, and it’s deeply personal to me in many ways. Firstly, my grandfather was a Jewish refugee who was forced to flee his home country of Poland during the Second World War, and eventually he ended up in the Netherlands as a stateless citizen. Remarkably, he succeeded in quickly rebuilding his life as a theatre director, so through his art he was able to reclaim his identity. Then on another level, I have always wanted to include the medium of dance in my films because I myself danced ballet for 15 years. And then as a documentary filmmaker, I’m always looking for multi-layered, character-driven stories with a strong sense of urgency. This story distinguishes itself from this type of narrative by interweaving the current war in Ukraine with the power of art. The dancers in “Front Row” used their talent — their dance — as a way to preserve their humanity, and that really resonated with me.
How did you decide on the four main dancers you wanted to follow?
I did really elaborate research and I spoke to all the dancers of the company. Of course, everyone has an interesting story, but I tried to look at which stories were compatible with one another. I wanted different themes to be in there and different types of relationships. What was what was in mind from the start was that these dancers are from Ukraine, but are now located in the Netherlands, so there was this constant struggle of dancing, needing to keep up with their performances and with their careers, but in their minds and hearts, they are in Ukraine.
This was so unusual structurally when Sasha, the person who really becomes the lead of the film, only comes into the picture a bit later. Was that actually your own experience on the ground?
Yes, and really his presence really confronted them with the question of are we doing enough? We were filming for already half a year, and then Sasha came into the story. Alexis, [one of the] principal dancers, connected with Sasha through Instagram and invited him to come and watch “Giselle” in Washington while Sasha was rehabilitating in the U.S. after getting his prosthetics, and then seeing them perform, [Sasha] fell in love with ballet and he was welcomed by the company to join them. Eventually they performed together in L.A. in July 2023, which was a huge success, so he came as a big and beautiful surprise.
That’s the beauty of documentary is that you don’t know what’s going to happen. His entire presence was something I didn’t expect. It’s so admirable that after suffering such a physical injury, someone is mentally so strong and resilient and keeps fighting for what he believes in in all ways that his mind and body allows him to. He was definitely a wonderful inspiration for me and for the dancers and for this film.
Knowing your dance background, did you have certain ideas about how you wanted to film dance because that’s a lovely part of the film?
Yeah, I had a really wonderful collaboration with [the choreographer] Emma Evelein because she made the final choreography in L.A. and she’s also a filmmaker, so she also knows what works on film. That’s why we were able to film the performance from close [to the performers] because normally filming a theater is not very interesting when it’s only a wide shot, so our collaboration made it possible to really make a move [along with the] dance choreography and film it in a proper way.
You’re able to get a lot of material from the war zone, from Irinya returning to Kyiv to visit to Sasha’s dispatches about his recovery that he shot himself. Was it hard to get that in the film?
Actually there [in Kyiv] I worked with a local crew and we were in touch on a daily basis, but I didn’t go to Ukraine myself nor my crew did because it was very dangerous at the time. And as a filmmaker, [Sasha’s footage] was huge. It was a great gift that he documented so much— literally, the moment of his injury was covered and everything [in his recovery], so that really added a lot to the film that we used so much of his own footage.
At what point did you feel right about bringing the film to a close when the story is still sadly ongoing?
I wanted to the film to be urgent still. I hoped the war, of course, would be over, but I think it’s important to keep telling these stories, especially two-and-a-half years later because when the war first broke out, everyone was glued to the developments in Ukraine. Now we have become a little bit numb, so it’s my job to keep shining light on the atrocities and injustices that are still happening in Ukraine today. And especially in times of war, people are often reduced to numbers, so when we read the news, we read about numbers and we don’t know about people. As a documentary filmmaker, it’s my job to bring back the faces and human stories behind these numbers and especially with the last performance in L.A. where Sasha performs together with the ballet company, I knew that I had an ending. But I think it’s a very urgent time. Especially with the outcome of the [U.S.] elections last week, I think it’s very needed that people reconnect with Ukraine on a personal level.
“Front Row” will screen at DOC NYC on November 16th at 6:15 pm at the Village East Cinema, November 17th at 8:45 pm at the IFC Center and will be available virtually from November 17th through December 1st via the DOC NYC platform.