Art reflected life when Hugh Welchman of Breakthru Films started work on an animation of The Peasants, set during Russia’s occupation of Poland

Making a movie is hard enough at the best of times, but an Oscar-winning British film-maker and his crew found themselves with a particularly daunting challenge.
Hugh Welchman of Breakthru Films, which has painting animation studios in Poland, Lithuania and Serbia, opened another in Kyiv in January – only to have to close it weeks later and help its artists flee to safety after Russia invaded Ukraine.