The Berlin Film Festival has demonstrated reticence about addressing geopolitical matters, but Cannes leader Thierry Frémaux is showing no such hesitation, at least as regards the war in Ukraine.

“This war that Ukraine will not lose and Putin will not win,” Frémaux said of the full-scale invasion the Russian president launched against his neighbor in 2022. “And in any case, he already loses when there are filmmakers of such quality who make films of such quality [about Ukraine] to say what is the truth about this conflict.”

Frémaux’s remarks came Friday as he kicked off the announcement of the annual L’Oeil d’or Prize, which goes to the top documentary at Cannes. He saluted the president of the jury, Mstyslav Chernov, the Ukrainian filmmaker who won the Oscar for his 2023 documentary 20 Days in Mariupol. Chernov was shortlisted this past year for his follow up documentary, 2000 Meters to Andriivka.

After the announcement of the award – it went to Rehearsals for a Revolution, directed by Pegah Ahangarani – Deadline talked with Chernov, who said he was gratified to hear Frémaux speak on the subject of Ukraine.

“I’m always very happy when someone like Thierry or someone who has a big stage, someone who has a voice in the artistic industry, expresses their support for Ukrainian art and for Ukraine,” Chernov said. “The Ukraine film industry… Ukrainian art in general has taken huge responsibility — I would say sometimes it feels like too big of a responsibility on itself — to carry both artistic and political values to the world. And that is a hard thing to do because artists are not only speaking for themselves and for the people about whom they’re making their films, they’re also inevitably speaking for the country, and they inevitably make political statements. It is always hard for the artists to carry a wave of a political statements because, let’s say, there is a common mistake to think that art can exist outside of politics.”

Last year, Cannes screened 2000 Meters to Andriivka in honor of Ukraine. This year, Vesna, a drama set partially in Ukraine directed by Lithuanian-born filmmaker Rostislav Kirpicenko, premiered out of competition. Minotaur, the film by exiled Russian director Andreï Zviaguintsev, premiered in Competition. The drama is set in 2022 against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“I’m happy Ukraine is mentioned in Cannes. I’m happy that I can represent Ukraine in Cannes, especially in this documentary jury as president,” Chernov told us. “And I’m happy that more and more Ukrainian films are seen around the world.”

He added, “I keep thinking about the panel discussion that I was invited to last year at the Sheffield DocFest [in the UK] and it was called ‘Are there too many Ukrainian films?’ I see that question coming again and again, to which I can only say, ‘No.’ As long as this war goes on, it will be never enough. That being said, I think it is very important and I hope that Ukraine films and Ukraine’s art will go beyond topics of war because I think there’s just so much more to Ukrainian culture, to Ukrainian history to present to the world. And I’m personally planning films that will go deeper and present Ukraine and Ukraine culture and Ukrainian myth and Ukrainian life beyond the stereotype of war.”

Chernov elaborated on his upcoming projects.

“I’m working on several films currently and one of them is a documentary… my dream [is that it] will be about the end of the war and will be the third part of the trilogy about Ukraine that we’ve already seen with 20 Days in Mariupol and 2000 Meters to Andriivka. And I’m working on a fiction film, too, that will be in the news very soon.”