When the lights go out in a large movie theater, a girl appears on the screen, looking up at the sky. There are no explosions or shelling sounds — yet in her gaze lies the weight of loss, a destroyed home, and shattered dreams. From the very first moments, you begin to understand: this is no longer someone else’s war. This is what it looks like when a fragile child’s life is thrown into the grinder of history.

It’s estimated nearly 20,000 children in Ukraine have been abducted during the war and sent by Russia for ‘re-education’. A new documentary film reveals the horrors they face.

Creators of the Award-winning feature documentary “Children in the Fire” and Emile Foundation are proud to join forces in an international campaign to raise global awareness about one of the most painful and urgent humanitarian crises of our time: the systematic deportation, indoctrination, and abuse of Ukrainian children by Russia.

Politicians were moved a the private screening of “Children in the Fire” in February 2025 at the Munich Security Conference.

The Ukrainian gala premiere of the film "Children in Fire" by Ukrainian director Yevhen Afineevsky, a half-animation, half-documentary about the fate of Ukrainian children who survived and are still experiencing the war, which has already received five international awards, will take place on Thursday as part of the 16th Odesa International Film Festival at the Kyiv Zhovten Cinema.