A few minutes before the North American premiere of “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom,” director Evgeny Afineesvky summed up his state of mind in a single word: “exhausted.”
That makes sense, because “Freedom on Fire” screened at the Toronto International Film Festival about six months after Afineevsky and his team began working on it, barely more than a month after its final footage was filmed and only a few weeks after Helen Mirren recorded narration for a scene that comes early in the documentary.
For Afineevsky, who landed Oscar and Emmy nominations for 2015’s “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom,” this sequel of sorts was made in a six-month rush, including just three months of editing after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February of this year.