Movie theaters across the nation are standing with Ukraine.
On Friday, a group of U.S. movie exhibitors will screen Ukrainian director Oles Sanin’s 2014 feature film “The Guide” with proceeds going to relief efforts for his war-torn native country.
The filmmaker, reportedly locked down in Kyiv, added a new introduction to the acclaimed film imparting the urgent need for assistance to the eastern European country under attack by Russia.
A growing list of national and regional movie chains, and independent cinemas have agreed to show the 127-minute foreign film about an American boy and a blind minstrel amid the mid-1930s Soviet Ukraine.
“ ‘The Guide’ tells a story of tragedy that parallels what we see today,” Sanin wrote in the introduction.
Donations from cinemas will go toward to a special Ukraine Relief Fund that is being managed by Human & Civil Rights Organizations of America, Inc., which supports the International Red Cross and the International Organization for Migration, an official announcement stated.
“Less than two weeks ago, I offered my cinema in suburban Boston to show ‘The Guide’ as a fundraiser for Ukraine relief,” the organization’s president Marshall Strauss said in a statement on Tuesday. “Almost instantly, the effort exploded in size and key industry leaders joined the project, donating their services. Now, cinemas across the country are agreeing to show this milestone movie. The director and I agreed on only one condition: TICKET PROCEEDS are to go to humanitarian relief for Ukraine. Americans have this unique opportunity to stand with the people of Ukraine. We are all looking for a way to help. We now have it.”
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