On 27 February 2025 at 18:00, the Estonian Embassy, in cooperation with FinnAgora, will screen the film After the Rain: Putin’s Stolen Children Come Home at the Művész Cinema (1066 Budapest, Teréz krt. 30.). The British documentary, set in Estonia, will be accompanied by the award-winning Ukrainian short film Blueberry Summer. The films will be shown with English and Hungarian subtitles.
The screening is part of FOCUS ON UKRAINE, a series of events organised by 11 national cultural institutes and embassies in Hungary to commemorate the third anniversary of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. See the detailed programme in English here.
AFTER THE RAIN: PUTIN’S STOLEN CHILDREN COME HOME
directed by Sarah McCarthy
2024, UK, UA, 80 min
Deep in a forest by the Baltic Sea, in Estonia, a group of Ukrainian families come together to start the healing process with the help of golden retrievers and palamino horses at an animal therapy retreat. In the safety of the forest, the children’s memories of being illegally deported to Russia and their families’ struggles to rescue them are unraveled with the help of skilled and sensitive counsellors. The joy and humour the children discover during their time in the forest make it easy to forget that their stories are the reason the International Criminal Court recently issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin. Nearly 20,000 abducted children remain in Russian institutions.
BLUEBERRY SUMMER
directed by Masha Kondakova
(2024, FR, 18 min)
This summer, Ksyusha has to spend it harvesting blueberries in the forest of Kiev with her mother and sister to earn a living for her family. But she is distracted, waiting for her lover Misha. As they flirt, they go deeper and deeper into the forest, unaware of the danger.
The films will be shown with English and Hungarian subtitles.
The free screening can be visited with registration tickets available at the box office of the cinema from 20th February.