Ucarania President Volodimir Zelenski is expected to appear at the Berlinale

Zelensky is the subject of one of the festival’s highest-profile projects: the top-secret documentary of Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman “Superpower”. Details of the film have been kept scant for more than a year, when it was first revealed that Penn had been in the Ukraine when the war with Russia broke out.

While the Ukrainian leader has been making several virtual appearances at various award ceremonies in the past year, in recent weeks he has been venturing out of the country and taking trips across Europe. Last week, on what was his second trip out of Ukraine in the last year (the first was to the United States just before Christmas), he met with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunaktogether with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.

As Penn and Kaufman detailed in an exclusive interview with Variety on Monday, “Super Power” was initially intended as a documentary tracing Zelensky’s career path from actor-comedian-producer playing a history professor elected as President of Ukraine in the satirical television series “Servants of the People”to a rising political star elected as the real-life president of Ukraine in 2019. However, following the outbreak of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the project had to pivot to become more of a modern-day cautionary tale hero profile. .

“Super power” it was planned before the pandemic and then delayed when the Covid-19 crisis hit. Penn, who had been chatting with Zelensky by phone and Zoom during that two-year period, met with the president on February 23, 2022. War broke out a day later.

The Berlinale This year coincides with the first anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine. world premiere of “Super power” at the festival on Friday.