STORY::
Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian sand animator who won the “Ukraine’s Got Talent” competition. She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and “sand painting” skills constructing an animation that portrayed life during USSR’s Great Patriotic War against the Third Reich in World War II, from 1941-1945.
The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.
Simonova won 1,000,000 Ukraninan Hryvnia (approx. USD125,000) for her first place in the show. She has returned to ordinary life in the Crimean seaside town of Evpatoria, where she has used her £80,000 prize to buy a modest house and set up a children’s charity.
Simonova has told interviewers she is happy to stay in Evpatoria and will not be travelling abroad to cash in on her growing global fan base. Her success has taken the young woman by surprise. “I only entered because there was a child I know who needed an operation and I wanted to help,” she said. “I did not mean to make the whole country cry.”
Here is the link to Quentin Bacon.
Leave a Reply