Essay by Ari Weinzweig: Fine Films and the Fight for Freedom: You, Me, and Ukraine

February 22, 2026

Left photo: Still from Divia Right photo: Self-Preserving Nudity

If you had asked a few hundred Americans back, say, at the turn of the 21st century, to name a country that might serve as an inspiring role model for democratically minded Americans, I doubt that many would have mentioned Ukraine.

That was then, this is now. 

My own answer, as we prepare to welcome the 64th Ann Arbor Film Festival in 2026, is, unquestionably, Ukraine. When I want inspiration to be inspired to work harder to make democratic constructs the daily norm in both our company, Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, and in this country, I look now most often 5,000 miles to the east, to what the Ukrainian people demonstrate daily.

I am not alone in this view. A few years ago, Ukrainian educator and journalist Mychailo Wynnyckyj similarly said:

I suggest that the significance of what came to be known as [Ukraine’s 2014] “Revolution of Dignity” was (is) not limited to Ukraine, but in fact reflected an ongoing fundamental civilizational shift with consequences far beyond eastern Europe.

I believe Wynnyckyj is right. While our own country seems to be stuck in existential angst over whether we collectively prefer autocracy or democracy, Ukrainians appear almost universally clear that they are not interested in living in an autocracy. They demonstrate that daily through their willingness to fight and die for democracy. In that sense, Ukraine in the 21st century embodies and exemplifies the deep work that all of us spend our entire lives engaged in: the existential struggle to be ourselves. 

What does all that have to do with film? As my good friend, the Irish story activist and author of A Whole Life in Twelve Movies Gareth Higgins, writes:

I have a simple view of what makes a movie great: does the movie help us become less human or more? In a narrative film, do the characters’ doubts and loves, the pain they suffer, and the results of their actions leave us with a deeper sense of our own humanity?

If Ukraine were a movie, my answer to Gareth’s good question would be incredibly easy: I’d offer up a 100%, no-holds-barred, “Yes!”  

While few in the United States realize it, Russian rulers in St. Petersburg and Moscow have worked repeatedly to subvert and suppress the remarkable culture and country of Ukraine for many centuries now. Those efforts continue today, full force, as we begin 2026. Watching from afar as the Ukrainian people repeatedly push through pain to persevere—not just to fend off cruel Russian attacks but to make amazing art, to live fully and freely as themselves—my own humanity has, without question, been radically enhanced. This year’s Ann Arbor Film Festival presents a similar opportunity for anyone who attends to do the same as they take in the insights of a half a dozen remarkable Ukrainian filmmakers.

In the spring of 1963, at around the same time that the founders of the Ann Arbor Film Festival were preparing for its debut, Ukrainian Soviet dissident Myroslav Marynovych said of his efforts to stand up to Soviet authorities, “Just being yourself…that was the main crime at that time.” Marynovych soon found himself serving a multi-year prison sentence for his “crime.” 

That reality is still, today, the same “crime” for which Ukraine has come under such vicious, immoral, and insidious attack by its invading colonial neighbor, Russia. And “just being yourself” is also of course what every filmmaker whose work is shown at the AAFF aspires to do—to make art that accurately reflects their true spirit. This year’s AAFF brings those two together in a beautiful way—Marynovych’s “crime” and modern directors’ creativity. And the reminder that if the Ukrainian filmmakers featured here this year were living in Russia, they would almost certainly find themselves serving similar prison sentences today, in 2026.

Colonially minded countries like Russia believe that everything belongs, by rights, to the bully who’s strong enough to overpower others. Ukrainians have been fighting against that aggression for centuries, and especially actively for the last four years. And, here in the US we can certainly use some lessons right now on how to stand up to uncaring bullies.

In the spirit of Myroslav Marynowych’s comments, the people of Ukraine remain committed to living true to themselves, to learning in their own language, to advancing their art, to crafting their culture in peace—and to making their magical films.

Ari Weinzweig is CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman's Community of Businesses. Ari is a graduate of University of Michigan, having studied Russian history and anarchism. He is the author of a number of articles and books, most recently, “A Revolution of Dignity in the Twenty-First Century Workplace.” His newest publication is the pamphlet, “Why Democracy Matters.”