BBC Newsnight – Playing for Ukraine
Thanks to BBC Newsnight, we’re delighted to share this stunning documentary feature following the 7 Ukrainian refugee cast members of ‘Maria‘ over the past month, as they prepared for the productions world-premiere as part of our free Ukrainian arts festival ‘A Place of Hope’.
This highly-anticipated production created by Yurii Radionov, was commissioned by Unity and Culture Liverpool for the Eurovision Cultural Festival. Maria tells the story of one Ukrainian woman’s journey from birth to death through the Soviet engineered famine of the 1930’s that left millions dead.
It is a powerful, important feature following the actors on their journey – documenting their creative process in their new environment here in the UK and recounting their own powerful stories of loss and overcoming the odds.
We’re extremely grateful to Yurii, Shorena, Viktoria, Sasha, Olena, Vadym, Lavrenti and the rest of their creative team for creating this new show for Liverpool, it has been a privilege having them with us every day. The response from the sold-out performances here this past fortnight was unlike anything we have seen and we will be sharing news shortly on how more people can access this “must-see”, “vital” production.
This 30-minute documentary, ‘Playing for Ukraine’ has been created by BBC Newsnight to air across BBC 2 and BBC News and is now available on-demand on BBC iPlayer.
Watch Full Length Version Here