On The Edge: the Story of a Front-line Newspaper Editor’s Invincibility – NUJU holds first screening of its documentary

The premiere of the documentary called “On The Edge: The Story of the Invincible Front-line Newspaper Editor,” prepared by the NUJU Information Service, took place on June 5, on the eve of Journalist’s Day, in the capital’s Parkovyi convention and exhibition center.

This film tells about the work of the front-line newspaper Zoria from Zolochiv, Kharkiv Region, and its editor-in-chief, Vasyl Miroshnyk. Every week, in his own car, he delivers the circulation of the newspaper to the settlements where there are readers of this publication, including to the front-line villages, which are perfectly visible in the sights of russian snipers.

“Each trip is 400 kilometers of front-line roads. These are settlements that have long been washed with the blood of peaceful people. There are a lot of dead in each of them,” says Vasyl Miroshnyk. “But today, it is impossible not to make a newspaper for the front-line territories.

Even the bombing of the Kharkiv printing house, where the newspaper was published, failed to make Vasyl Miroshnyk stop or suspend the printing of Zoria.

The camera crew of the NUJU traveled with him all the way, in particular, to the most remote corners of the Zolochiv District, which is surrounded on three sides by the territory of russia.

“The hero of our documentary does his work On The Edge – On The Edge with russia, On The Edge of possibilities. That’s why we named this film that way. On The Edge – it’s about both geography and state,” said the director of the film, Nataliya Shumak. “Vasyl Miroshnyk publishes and delivers newspapers, although he could not do this. But he does – to inform people, to help them. Yevhen Cherevko and I could not shoot this film either. Because I’m a journalist, I’m not a cameraman. And Yevhen is the editing director, he is not the cameraman. But we take the cameras in our hands and go to film front-line life. To show it as it is, to show the heroism and resilience of such ordinary people as Vasyl Savych [his patronymic name], as those residents who plant flower beds after the shelling, as workers of the printing press who print newspapers despite the blackout. Although all of them could not do it.”

Nataliya is convinced that every Ukrainian now does something that, in reality, he could not do. Our defenders could just as well not fight. But thanks to the fact that each of them took up arms and went to the front, we can hold such events.

“The Union of Journalists considers the presentation of the film as an opportunity to emphasize the importance of the work of journalists who constantly live and work in the front-line territories,” emphasizes the head of the NUJU, Sergiy Tomilenko.

It was the journalists from the front-line regions who became the guests of honor at the show.

NUJU Information Service