In the Rearview

"Such beautiful buildings... not bombed at all," says a young girl admiring a pristine part of her homeland as she passes through. She is one of more than 400 passengers that have taken a seat in Maciek Hamela's VW minibus. The documentary filmmaker helps Ukrainian children, women and elderly people cross the border into Poland to flee the Russian army. Silently observing, the camera captures the journey's events. While the war itself is not depicted visually, it is the drawn faces of the people involved, their stories and their tragic fates that express the misery. Nevertheless, sparks of hope keep leaping from this moving odyssey of survival.