Almost Holy

After the Soviet Union broke up, state institutions in Ukraine collapsed, corruption grew and a great many children ended up on the street. Some of them became dependent on a mixture of injected cough medicine and alcohol. Gennadiy Mokhnenko, a pastor in Mariupol, began intervening in that situation in his own way in the early two thousands. His method is contested: he takes children off the street by force and brings them to the centre he founded, Pilgrim Republic. He admits to this openly. To some he is a folk hero, to others a man who has taken the law into his own hands. Steve Hoover's documentary gives both sides and does not hand down a final verdict; the real subject is the distance between an end and a means. Terrence Malick is among the producers.