Vitali Klitschko was only a year into his retirement from boxing when he was elected mayor of Ukrainian capital Kyiv in 2014. Eight years later, the former heavyweight champion found himself desperately trying to hold his city together as Russia invaded the country. A new documentary follows Klitschko, together with younger brother and fellow boxer Wladimir, as he uses his fame to campaign for military support and raise funding in the face of Russian aggression.
Klitschko: More Than A Fight, which opened the Sheffield Documentary Festival on Wednesday, explores the challenges he faced in a war that is still ongoing. "I wanted to make a film about two celebrities who are using their celebrity to reach a really wide audience," the film's director Kevin Macdonald tells BBC News in Sheffield. "And I was lucky that the two celebrities didn't happen to be pop singers or something.
They are fighters to their core, and obviously the metaphor is hard to resist of them fighting in the ring and then fighting for their country." The documentary features new interviews with both brothers, who speak openly about how their high profile has helped them in the war effort. "Most of us don't know the names of many presidents [around the world]," Vitali says in the film.
"But the names of world heavyweight champions are known to almost everyone on the planet. Sport has opened so many doors for us." The Klitschko brothers dominated boxing for a decade.
Both were world heavyweight champions, and b.