A film director and his most humane project: a private flight from Poland to Italy to rescue hundreds of Ukrainian refugees

(From Warsaw, special envoy) “Good evening, dear passengers. My name is Enrique Piñeyro and I think most of you know me.”

The one who speaks on the loudspeaker is the pilot and owner of this Boeing 787 Dreamliner. He is also the Italian-Argentine filmmaker of Whisky Romeo Zulu (2004) and El Rati Horror Show (2010), and the chef behind the restaurant Anchoita. He was also a pilot for LAPA (Argentine Private Airlines) and an air accident investigator. But, more inherent to this note, he is the commander of a humanitarian flight that departed on Sunday, March 20 from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Warsaw, Poland, to rescue a few hundred Ukrainians escaping the war and taking them to three destinations within Italy.

Piñeyro is the founder of the organization Solidaire, which has a strategic alliance with Open Arms and different refugee care entities. They created an air humanitarian corridor to save families who have left their homes and who are looking for a place to safety until this conflict ends and to be able to return to their homeland.

The previous week he had already carried out humanitarian flights between Poland and Spain. He and his crew put themselves at the service of families who were transferred to new reception spaces managed by refugee reception entities.

“Some time ago we had made a humanitarian flight to Niger; they were people who had been tortured and enslaved. They had all been slaves. The relief of these people was palpable. They laughed, clapped, sang. Happiness was total. It's already started at takeoff. They applauded like crazy, and I thought it was because I had made a good takeoff,” Piñeyro jokes in dialogue with Infobae from the cabin of his ship as they fly over the Sahara. Let a few minutes of silence pass while a jet jet passes 300 meters below. “On the other hand in last week's humanitarian flight we did with Ukrainian refugees, while there is the relief of being in a place where civilians are not bombed, they were torn families. Women without husbands, old women without children, children without fathers. The climate was different.”

And the boys were heartbroken. He recalls the case of a 12-year-old teenager, who cried without comfort in his mother's arms: “She was trying to contain him, and she was barely taller than him. And his 4 year old boy looking stunned.”

Scenes like this will be repeated when flights from Warsaw to Rome, Cagliari and Palermo leave from March 21 for three days in a row. An almost non-stop itinerary. It's just that time is running out. Women, children and the elderly, those unfit for combat in Ukraine, are forced to leave their land and loved ones. To leave a part of himself behind.

“You can also see the different attitude of Europe towards refugees from Ukraine compared to those from other sides,” he clarifies, but he also highlights the fear of these people, who do not know the language, do not know the culture of the places that will host them. They will be forced to start a new life in the “meantime”, with unpredictability and constant waiting stalking them all the time.

On this flight to Warsaw is Zhanna Chuchman, a Ukrainian resident in Argentina for 16 years, along with her daughter Eva, who left before the Lollapalooza music festival and came with it and a little more. Both travel to the Polish capital to meet Zhanna's sister, and their three children, aged 15, 6 and 2, who managed to leave Ukraine long before the war broke out.

Her nails are painted yellow and light blue in honor of her homeland that is being devastated. And she wears a ribbon with Ukrainian colors that she generously offers to this journalist to carry with her along the way. Zhanna is happy and excited at the idea of meeting her sister again, whom she hasn't seen for more than three years. And he's happy because she's safe in Poland. The rest of his family isn't so lucky.

“They can't go out, and they don't want to. My mom lives in a village near Lviev. I talked to her today and she cried a lot. She's taking care of my grandmother, who is 86 years old and wants to stay, that's all she knows, she doesn't want to leave her home.”

He says that “Lviev is relatively quiet compared to other places” but that only a few days ago they fired a missile from the Black Sea into an air depot. That guy doesn't have a conscience.” And let the weight of that unnamed man float in the air.

Now, the huge plane is almost empty. It transports journalists, photographers and videographers; workers of the Ukrainian embassy and many donations. But in a day it will be full. On board will go “everyone who enters; all who can.”

Franco Fafasuli: Photos

Keep reading: