MTV showcases Ukraine’s exiled youth
Where were you when the world stopped turning? Country songwriter Alan Jackson spoke to millions of frightened Americans with his ballad about the terror attacks on 9/11.
Magnify that one-day terror over the course of a year, the destruction of a country and an effort to erase a people and you begin to approach the sense of terror among Ukraine’s population, suffering the effects of a Russian invasion begun last Feb. 24.
MTV departs from its generally lighthearted programming to air the documentary “Don’t Leave Me Behind: Stories of Young Ukrainian Survival” (10 p.m., TV-14), which follows a handful of young people in their teens and 20s who are among the millions who fled to neighboring countries in the aftermath of Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
The film does a good job of humanizing their dilemma. On one hand, they have endured a gruesome national calamity. But at the same time, they are young people with their own hopes and dreams. One girl, now in Poland, grieves for her country while also mourning the loss of her individual dancing career, a passion that had been at the center of her life until the bombs began to fall.
This film dovetails with the “Frontline” documentary “Ukraine: Life Under Russia’s Attack,” which was broadcast last Tuesday and can be streamed at pbs.org/ frontline or with the PBS app.
A number of past “Frontline” documentaries can be accessed in this manner. For viewers who want to dig deeper into the subjects covered in these films, “Frontline” has created its “Transparency Project,” which makes available footage of interviews of the subjects who are participants in each documentary. Some films include some 30 to 50 interviews, all available to watch.
For those who prefer to get their journalism via podcasts, “Frontline” creates podcasts that feature the audio from its documentaries. You can download them at www. pbs .org/wgbh/ frontline/podcasts/
At a time when so many formerly dependable and substantial sources of news and journalism have been eliminated or neutered by corporate acquisition and mergers, “Frontline” stands out as a serious source of substantive reporting.
› “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel” (10 p.m., HBO, TV-PG) reports on the cozy relationship between sporting organizations, including soccer’s FIFA and the Swiss government. Many of these organizations have located their headquarters in that European country; some contend it’s because Switzerland turns a blind eye to bribery and corruption scandals.
Another report profiles Aaron “Wheelz” Fotheringham. Born with spina bifida, he is considered the godfather of extreme wheelchair sports, where jumping, flipping and crashing have become the norm.
There’s also a group profile of lifeguards who work the beaches on Oahu’s North Shore, a surfing mecca with some of the world’s most dangerous waves, as well as a look at a Philadelphia country club whose members teach the rudiments of their symbolically elite sport to inner-city youth.