{"id":846013,"date":"2026-09-13T05:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T05:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/846013\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T05:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T05:08:11","slug":"black-sunflowers-team-on-sean-penns-support-for-doc-about-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/846013\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Black Sunflowers’ Team On Sean Penn’s Support For Doc About Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe poster for the documentary Black Sunflowers<\/a>, the Ukraine war-themed documentary that just made its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, shows a young man dancing in a room. Look more closely and you can see he is missing part of his right leg, below the knee.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis image shows the reality for many young Ukrainians severely impacted by Russia\u2019s war of aggression \u2013 some have been maimed, some bear psychic wounds, others have given up dreams they nurtured before the full-scale invasion, but most retain a determination to live life with abandon when no future is guaranteed.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"'Black<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJames Marcus Haney\/Black Sunflowers<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere are so many films that have come out about Ukraine so far and a lot of them are very, very war-focused and heavy and grim, and they\u2019re very important films that need to be seen,\u201d observed director James Marcus Haney as he stopped by Deadline\u2019s Studio at TIFF. \u201cAll those films showed horrible atrocities this war has brought to Ukraine, the death, the burnt-out villages, the broken soldiers. There wasn\u2019t much that I was seeing showing all the things that were worth fighting for, all the light in Ukraine. And my experiences going there the first couple trips versus what I\u2019d seen in these films and on the news was there\u2019s a slight disconnect\u2026 So many people didn\u2019t know how much light is still in Ukraine and how bright these people are shining.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTwin sisters Anna and Tetyana Diianchuk, who appear in the film, maintain their focus as artists, but go to intense ragers to take their minds off war. Young soldiers and injured vets also join in those frenetic dance parties (one vet \u2013 probably the guy in the poster \u2013 holds his prosthetic leg aloft at one wild rager).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tA young Ukrainian war veteran holds his prosthetic leg aloft at a concert in \u2018Black Sunflowers.\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJames Marcus Haney\/Black Sunflowers<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor soldiers, for sure it\u2019s super important because it\u2019s very hard to return to your daily life and because your daily life, it\u2019s not any more regular life,\u201d Tetyana said. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s like you have so many thoughts around you and [you] sort them out when you are dancing so hard. When you are coming out from the party already going home, you feel like some thoughts [are] already gone. You [are] kind of sorting out your brain there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNikoletta Stoianova wanted to be a nature photographer but switched her attention to documenting war after the full-scale invasion began in 2022.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI only turned 19 barely at the time and I immediately realized that I cannot get to the front, but at least I can go and get some photos which can show the truth [to] the world about everything that\u2019s going on,\u201d Stoianova said. \u201cI would love to do more. I would love that more people knew about it. And that\u2019s why I\u2019m so happy and pleased that Marcus came to Ukraine to make the whole film about that. Because when you\u2019re young and you\u2019re feeling already like 45 years old in the depth of your soul, it\u2019s not cool because it drains you out. It exhausts you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSean Penn, who has championed the cause of Ukraine and directed his own documentary about Ukraine, 2023\u2019s Superpower<\/a>, serves as an executive producer of Black Sunflowers. He came to Toronto to support Haney\u2019s film.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI said also to him yesterday that [we\u2019re] really honored and it\u2019s really cool that you\u2019re not only supporting by your words, but you also do some actions,\u201d Tetyana Diianchuk said of Penn. \u201cYou\u2019re coming, you\u2019re volunteering, you care. And now you are also trying to invest in the\u2026 movie about Ukraine. So yeah, it\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the video above, Stoianova addresses the meaning of the title Black Sunflowers; Haney talks about how the Trump administration\u2019s gutting of USAID has harmed soldiers in Ukraine and what it means to premiere his documentary at the Toronto Film Festival after nearing making his TIFF debut over a decade ago.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Deadline Studio at TIFF is hosted at Bisha Hotel<\/a> and presented by Volvo, Columbia, Patr\u00f3n and Schwarzkopf.<\/p>\n

\n\tPanelists:\u00a0James Marcus Haney (director); Nikoletta Stoianova (subject); Anna Diianchuk (subject); Tetyana Diianchuk (subject)<\/p>\n

\n\tFirst Screening:\u00a0Friday, Sept. 11 at Scotiabank Theatre<\/p>\n

\n\tSales agent:\u00a0Charades and CAA Media Finance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The poster for the documentary Black Sunflowers, the Ukraine war-themed documentary that just made its world premiere at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[357968,88,357969,206,90136,46686,357827,12378],"class_list":["post-846013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-black-sunflowers","tag-entertainment","tag-james-marcus-haney","tag-movies","tag-sean-penn","tag-tiff","tag-tiff-studio","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}