From Vanity Fair · John Ross · · 4m
Sean Penn's call to human arms from Ukraine's rave generation
Marcus Haney filmed Ukrainian teenagers who move between the front line and the dance floor, and Sean Penn wants the Trump family to sit through it.
In brief
Marcus Haney filmed Ukrainian teenagers who move between the front line and the dance floor, and Sean Penn wants the Trump family to sit through it. None of these kids chose to be soldiers, which is exactly why their choices should make everyone else ask what they would do. Originally reported by Vanity Fair.
Quick answers
- Who are you in this film?
- A missile strike near the bunker pushed Haney past the line he usually dances on. His question to viewers is the one he asked himself, and he has no answer.
- What is the key takeaway from Sean Penn's call to human arms from Ukraine's rave generation?
- None of these kids chose to be soldiers, which is exactly why their choices should make everyone else ask what they would do.
A call to human arms
At Friday's premiere, executive producer Sean Penn described Marcus Haney's Ukraine documentary in five words that set the tone for the whole night.
“a call to human arms”
War and rave culture
Black Sunflowers follows young Ukrainians bound together by two things at once: the war with Russia and the rave scene they refuse to give up.
Some are as young as 18
Haney's camera goes into battle, onto the dance floor, into political arguments with grandparents, and into people falling in love.
No single position on fighting
Some subjects are soldiers, some are artists. Some feel a duty to fight, others doubt war is the way through. The only thing they share is being young.
The hum never stops
Drone strikes or stray gunfire sit behind every scene. Many of these kids went straight from the COVID lockdowns into a full invasion.
Adults, then teenagers again
They carry themselves like grown men and women, then open social media or FaceTime a boyfriend. The film runs a brisk 95 minutes.
Haney knows less now
Asked whether the kids should have hope, the director said filming left him with fewer answers than he started with.
“I feel like I know less than I did when I was first going in.”
A war without an end date
Soldiers Haney spoke to expect no quick finish. Some front-line kids see this as a war they could be fighting for the rest of their lives.
“It's not going to stop until [Russian President Vladimir] Putin stops it or is forcibly stopped.”
Victory already happened
Penn refuses the word as a military scoreboard. To him Ukrainians won long ago by showing, again and again, what is worth hoping for in people.
“Ukrainians represented anything worth having hope for humanity over and over again.”
Donations fell off a cliff
Attention was never the only thing that drained away. Hard money and state support from other countries, the US included, dropped sharply after the first two years.
“it's like a cliff drop”
Upstaged by Gaza
Penn says yes, and blames a wider failure: manufactured crises and distraction running through banking, military, humanitarian and press institutions alike.
“Confusion and manufactured crises and distraction is now systemic from the top of the world.”
Attention burns out fast
Penn points to the Palisades wildfires. Five days of shared horror, then people stare at the ruins and move on. America waits for something to trend before calling it great.
The USAID cut lands onscreen
Mid-film, Trump revokes USAID and the consequences arrive fast: a gay soldier, and amputees whose care ran on those grants.
“A kind way to put it would be negligent homicide, but we've been told not to use those terms.”
Why Ukraine liked Trump first
Without the American context, a promise to end the war in a day sounded like salvation. Haney was surprised how ready they were to take that chance.
“That's salvation, that's the end of the war.”
Then the backlash
Once it became clear the promise was empty, receptiveness flipped hard. Haney calls the turn crazy in its speed.
“this guy's absolutely full of shit”
The Oval Office meeting
The Trump, Vance and Zelensky blowup was painful to watch with a theater audience. Haney went into a bunker with his subjects right after, and calls it a crystallizing moment.
“That was a crystallizing moment for Ukraine.”
Criticism from CNN too
Penn heard mainstream North American media, not just Fox, fault Zelensky for not thanking Trump enough. He believes nothing was going to change that meeting's outcome.
“disillusionment is a national pastime”
An invitation to Kushner and Ivanka
Penn wants them in a screening. The film attacks no president, and he says these stories are familiar enough to give anyone a chance to reflect.
“I'm willing to be wrong anytime he wants. It's worth the chance.”
Penn skipped the Oscars
He was in Ukraine instead, uncomfortable in big rooms and unsure he had anything new to say. Haney thinks being there said more than a speech would have.
“When I see value added in something that is bigger than me, I do it.”
Who are you in this film?
A missile strike near the bunker pushed Haney past the line he usually dances on. His question to viewers is the one he asked himself, and he has no answer.
“I wouldn't know until that moment.”
The headline
None of these kids chose to be soldiers, which is exactly why their choices should make everyone else ask what they would do.
