THE DAILY BEAST
Dodging Russian bullets and bombs, zookeepers and volunteers—who were risking their lives to save big cats, bears, apes and thousands of other creatures at a besieged Ukrainian zoo—captured hearts worldwide. The Feldman Ecopark in Kharkiv had been shelled relentlessly since the conflict began on Feb. 24, 2022. Throughout it all, a handful of fearless park staff stayed to care for the animals caught in the crossfire.
The compelling new documentary Checkpoint Zoo chronicles the extraordinary courage and compassion of a small group of men and women scrambling to evacuate 5,000 terrified and starving animals trapped in the zoo behind enemy lines.
Two years ago as the drama around Feldman Ecopark was unfolding, filmmaker Joshua Zeman had just finished filming The Loneliest Whale when he was captivated by the haunting image of a chimpanzee named Chichi walking alone around Freedom Square in Kharkiv.“Seeing this animal searching for his freedom or enjoying that freedom of escaping a zoo, while here you have this country that was under siege and fighting for its freedom and its own sovereignty immediately drew me,” he told The Daily Beast.
That solitary chimp led him to the ecopark in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, just 15 miles from the Russian border. By coincidence, the documentary is due to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival next month just as war returns to the Kharkiv region in President Vladimir Putin’s latest offensive. “It was the first time I filmed in a conflict zone, only six months into the war, and it was still quite hot with bombings and missiles,” said Zeman, the boyish-looking fortysomething director best known for his true-crime docuseries The Sons of Sam, Murder Mountain and the critically acclaimed Cropsey. He was speaking from an editing suite in New York ahead of the doc’s run at the film festival. “But I knew we had a great story. I had these characters, these five different kids who were innocent in some respects, but they were also their own little soldiers in their own little war.”
Stitching together a vivid mix of gorgeous cinematography, intimate interviews and a patchwork of gritty footage captured by the rescuers and news media in those fateful days, Zeman created a work of heart-stopping suspense and tenderness. The documentary, detailing the day-to-day struggles and dangers these people faced as they frantically rushed around in sub-zero temperatures feeding the animals, while the shells rained down around them, is so immersive that we often feel like we’re right there with them living through the horrors of it all.
The film’s chilling opening shot against a black screen with whispering, roaring lions and bombs exploding like distant thunder, followed by half a dozen men carrying a tranquilized lion into a van and a breaking news bulletin of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, offers a gripping snapshot of human passion at its best and its worst.
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