When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, Jordan Campbell picked up the phone. The longtime Colorado resident called a friend in Kyiv to check on her safety. Her response was startling: “I'm staying. I'm building Molotov cocktails in my basement.”
Within 24 hours, Campbell had booked a ticket. That moment marked the beginning of Ukraine Under Fire—a grassroots documentary that has since taken him back to the war-torn country four times.
The film tells the story of the war through the eyes of Olga Butko, a Ukrainian television anchor who never stopped broadcasting the news, even as missiles fell on her city. Campbell follows her into her childhood home near the Russian border, now in ruins. Along the way, we meet Iryna Karagan, a Ukrainian mom and mountaineer who stayed to defend her neighborhood, and Peter Fouché, a combat medic who helped extract the wounded from the front lines—until he was killed by a drone strike in 2023.
Olga’s voice, filled with grief and resolve, threads the story together. “We are fighting because we love our country,” she says. “We are fighting because we love our families.”
Funded by small donations from across Colorado—including Ridgeway, Montrose, Ouray and Telluride—Ukraine Under Fire is truly a community-supported project.
Catch it at the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival, Friday, May 23 at 9:30 a.m. at Masons Hall, or at the Ouray International Film Festival, Friday, June 20 at 3:00 p.m. at the Wright Opera House.
