Hollywood Actor Sean Penn seems to have spent almost as much time as a political propagandist as he has as an actor.
Penn has praised Marxist thug Hugo Chavez, voiced support for Gaddafi, called the unvaccinated criminals, and seems to have had a man-crush on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for some time now.
In February 2022, Penn traveled to Ukraine for the first time while working on a documentary about the war, making six trips in total during filming.
In April 2022, Penn told Newsweek, “The only possible reason for me staying in Ukraine longer last time would’ve been for me to be holding a rifle, probably without body armor, because as a foreigner, you would want to give that body armor to one of the civilian fighters who doesn’t have it or to a fighter with more skills than I have, or to a younger man or woman who could fight for longer or whatever.”
Penn was with Zelensky “the day before the invasion” and “during the invasion, on day one,” and said, “it struck me that I was now looking at a guy who knew that he had to rise to the ultimate level of human courage and leadership. I think he found out that he was born to do that.”
Penn’s resulting documentary, “Superpower” premiered Friday night at the Berlin film festival. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “And when the credits rolled a little under two hours later, the Berlin crowd rose to its feet to give Penn and his collaborators a warm standing ovation.”
Sean Penn premiered “Superpower”, his admiring portrait of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at war, telling the Berlin film festival Saturday the movie was also a wakeup call about Americans’ own fragile democracy.
The two-time Oscar winner was in Kyiv making a documentary about Zelensky’s rise from comedian to national leader when Russia invaded nearly one year ago.
In a series of interviews on that first terrifying night and during the initial months of the onslaught, Penn and Zelensky built up what they both call a close friendship.
“It was a very moving way to start to get to know somebody,” Penn told reporters.
Aside from meeting my children at their birth, the highlight of (my life was) meeting and sensing a great human heart of courage that day with that man.”
Zelensky joined Penn by video link at the festival’s opening ceremony Thursday to ask for the entertainment industry’s sustained help in keeping Western countries united behind Ukraine.
“Cinema cannot change the world,” said Zelensky. “But it can influence and inspire people who can change the world.”
The trained actor stresses in the film that the more quickly the war is ended, the less likely “Americans will have to fight” one day in a Russian war against NATO.
Penn, who appears in almost every scene of the two-hour movie made for Vice Media, said he was okay with being called a “propagandist”.
“We made a very unapologetically biased film because that was the true story we found,” he said.
