The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. Millions of Ukrainians fled their homes for asylum in the West with the vast majority going to Poland, Germany, and Czechia. There they were hosted under various Temporary Protection schemes. By the end of 2022, nearly 6.5 million refugees had been recorded worldwide. Women and children constituted the largest demographic group, making up 76% of all refugees fleeing the war.
Under the most unlikely of circumstances, the paths of American documentary filmmaker Mike Dorsey and Mother Maria Cristiana Demianczuk (who is originally from Argentina) would cross in Ivano-Frankivsk at a small school for Ukrainian children that the Sister was running in a convent staffed by nuns of the Sister Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará. Mother Cristiana and her nuns were good friends with the Barcelona-based NGO, humanitarian organization, Accio Familiar, and one of its members, Rafa Moreno.
For about 20 years before the war began, Mr. Moreno would come to Ukraine and take children in need for the summer to enjoy Barcelona, the sea, and to stay at different homes and families. When the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, he called Mother Cristiana and asked: “how can I help?”. And so together they came up with a concrete plan to send Ukrainian refugees away from the war to Barcelona. And Rafa’s colleague Eduardo Lop assisted in this humanitarian effort.
Mike Dorsey found out about Mother Cristiana’s life-changing undertaking from his Californian friend Steven Campos, who is an almond grower near Fresno and of Spanish heritage. Back in Spain, old family friends of Steven were involved with the NGO in Barcelona, the Accio Familiar. And so, looking for a new and very different subject for a documentary, Mr. Dorsey decided to make a film about Mother Cristiana’s Ukrainian refugee convoy to Barcelona. Within weeks, he and his production crew were on their way to Europe to film the documentary. It was very quick.
Mother Cristiana describes that during the first six or eight months of the war, the first people helped were those she and her colleagues already knew -- the families and the friends they had in Ukraine. “And then we just kept the window open. Many times, through the fathers that said goodbye to their families, they told other men or women about this possibility and people would contact us.” In the beginning, it was only war refugees from western Ukraine, but eventually also they came from the eastern and southern regions as well. And they were no longer only acquaintances, just people in need that wanted to find help or housing. So, it was a lot of work organizing and giving away and trying to do this in the most and best way possible.
Mike Dorsey talks about the major challenge of making this documentary. “That's a good question. I would say for me personally, it was, you know, I was only sleeping a couple hours a night while we were over there. So, I was constantly sleep deprived … but I hired a very good crew, Emmy-winning cinematographers and my sound guy and all. They all had experience filming in extreme situations. I didn't know what the situation was going to be when we got there. So honestly, it was just the marathon of nine straight days of filming and really being on 24 hours a day the entire time.”
“Sisters of Ukraine” is available for streaming in the U.S. on several platforms including Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, etc. You can also listen to a recent podcast interview with Director Mike Dorsey and Mother Cristiana on the web site of The Ukrainian Weekly newspaper.
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