‘Please go to the shelter NOW!” The text message from our lovely guide comes through at about 1am. She knows I have ignored the countless air-raid warnings that have previously popped up on my phone, but this one, she says, is a missile, not a drone or a jet. So I go to the car park beneath my hotel and am greeted by a sardonic round of applause.
It is midway through the Odesa international film festival and I am one of five judges in the “national” section. The other four judges are women – Wanda from the Czech Republic, Sahraa from Afghanistan, Lisa Marie from the UK and Alisa, who is Ukrainian. There are nine films to watch, a mixture of documentary and drama. At the end, we can award two cash prizes.
