“Slava Ukraini”: premiere of BHL’s new film in Paris
Photos by Igor Shabalin et Bertrand Rindoff
After “Why Ukraine”, which documented the first months of this war declared by Russia, BHL went back to the Ukrainian fighters and civilian victims facing the front.
“Slava Ukraini” picks up where the previous documentary left off.
Bernard-Henri Lévy presented this film, which will be released in theaters on February 22nd, 2023 at the Le Balzac cinema in Paris, on February 6th, in the presence of his loyal film crew (Marc Roussel, Gilles Hertzog, Olivier Jacquin, Yaroslav Prokopenko). The Ukrainians whose story he tells in his film (Azovstal veteran Ilya Samoïlenko, Uman rabbi Rav Nathan Ben Noon, Sviatoslav Vakarchuk who composed the music for “Slava Ukraini”, as well as fellow traveller Sergei Osipenko) also attended the premiere.
“Slava Ukraini” moved the two packed screening rooms which gathered a heterogeneous audience, where writers (Marc Lambron, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Christine Orban, Jean-Paul Enthoven, Pascal Bacqué, Nathan Devers), women and politicians (Anne Hidalgo, François Hollande, Manuel Valls, Jean-Michel Blanquer, Roselyne Bachelot, Philippe Douste-Blazy), intellectuals (Caroline Fourest, Romain Goupil, Pascal Bruckner), publishers (Olivier Nora, François Samuelson), journalists (Anne Sinclair, Alexis Lacroix, Claire Chazal, Laurent Joffrin, Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, Maurice Szafran, James Taranto, PJ Ramirez), film personalities and artists (Golshifteh Farahani, Alexandre Arcady, Patrick Bruel, Nicolas Bedos, Stanislas Merhar, Danièle Thompson, Michèle Halberstadt, Vincent Darré, Ali Mahdavi, James Thierrée, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Bertrand Burgalat), media personalities (Delphine Ernotte, Maurice Lévy, Nicolas Seydoux, Marin Karmitz) and the Ukrainian Ambassador Vadym Omelchenko all mingled.
The audience, which gave “Slava Ukraini” (“Glory to Ukraine”) a standing ovation, praised the film, its crew and its protagonists, but also Ukraine and its resistance forces.
