Director of After the Rain, set in animal therapy retreat, says she aimed to portray ‘children as children, not as a statistic’
S
asha Mezhevoy was five years old when she, her older brother and sister were sent to an orphanage in Moscow. They were told they were going to be adopted by a Russian family. But they were not orphans. They were Ukrainian children who had been forcibly removed from their father.
Sasha grew up in Mariupol, the port city that endured more than 80 days of bombardment in one of the bloodiest and most destructive chapters of the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The family became separated in April 2022 when the children’s father, Yvgeny Mezhevoy, was imprisoned in a Russian detention centre. After 45 days, he was released with no more explanation than with which he had been seized. He said that when he found out his children had been taken, “a bolt of rage shot through me”. Against the odds, with practical help and financial aid from a resourceful volunteer network, he recovered his three children and took them to the safety of Riga in Latvia.
