The latest installment of the Fertile Ground film and speaker series that I curate for the Ukrainian Institute of America invited senior producer Daniel Lombroso of the The New Yorker to talk about the films of documentary-maker Nadia Parfan. We had a full house, they had a lot of questions, and we had a terrific conversation about what The New Yorker looks for in documentary, as well as Daniel’s process of working with Nadia to create the short, “I Did Not Want to Make a War Film.” The evening was proof, yet again, how hard documentaries can hit, especially when the filmmaker has a sense of humor as impish as Parfan does.

Nadia is also founder of Takflix – a Ukrainian streaming service that pays 50 percent of proceeds to the artist, and 10 percent to Come Back Alive – a foundation providing assistance to Ukraine’s military.