DVD Review After The Rain: Putin’s Stolen Children Come Home

SYNOPSIS

After The Rain: Putin’s Stolen Children Come Home is a powerful and deeply human documentary from director Sarah McCarthy that confronts one of the most harrowing humanitarian crises of the modern era. Set in a forest retreat on the Baltic Sea, the film follows a group of Ukrainian families as they begin the slow and painful process of healing after their children were illegally deported to Russia during the ongoing war.

At the heart of the story are the children themselves – survivors of forced separation – who begin to rediscover trust and joy through animal-assisted therapy with golden retrievers and Palomino horses. In the hands of compassionate counselors, their trauma gradually unfolds, revealing the emotional and psychological toll of displacement, fear, and resilience.

McCarthy’s lens captures not only the quiet moments of recovery but also the families’ unwavering determination to reclaim what was taken from them. The result is an intimate portrait of strength and renewal that connects personal healing with global accountability – the very atrocities that led to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.

What We Thought:

We don’t get political here so we won’t talk about the political sides of After The Rain: Putin’s Stolen Children Come Home, we’ll only discuss the documentary on its human side. Children were taken from Ukraine and sent to Russia. Families fought to get their kids back and the documentary shows these kids trying to get back to normal through a camp to help them get re-adjusted.

This camp brings parents and siblings to help them get back to normal along with horses and other animals so that the children feel like children. The focus of the film are the children. There is a group of them that is the focus, but it tells you about many others. They do crafts, they get to swim and more importantly talk about about what they went through.

It’s that trauma that bonds the kids and families. Parents meet other parents who went through it. Kids get to be around kids who went through it. Shared experiences can have great breakthroughs because people can relate to one another and realize they aren’t alone. These kids were no longer alone, they were loved and had help available to them.

After The Rain: Putin’s Stolen Children Come Home is a pretty straight-forward documentary. By focusing on the kids, it humanizes the story. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know Ukrainian children were being taken during the fighting. The documentary opens eyes to their plight and brings hope that more kids will be returned and get back to their families.