A series of lectures on the current state of and challenges faced by Ukrainian cinema as it tries to shake off the crippling legacy of the Soviet past and to adapt to the fast-moving reality of a post-Soviet Ukraine. Each presentation will be followed by screening of films representing a wide range of contemporary Ukrainian directors, genres and subjects. The events are FREE and open to the public.
Ukraine. When the Countdown Began, 2011
Director: Serhy Bukovsky.
Duration: 90 min. Documentary narrative, colour.
Made on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Ukraine’s independence by the celebrated filmmaker Serhy Bukovsky, this feature documentary revisits the reasons of the Soviet collapse in 1991. Politicians, like the Ukrainians Leonid Kravchuk, Levko Lukianenko, Belarusian Stanislau Shushkevich, Russian Gennadii Burbulis, Americans Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, as well as Ukrainian public intellectuals, like Myroslav Popovych, Yaroslav Hrytsak, Oksana Zabuzhko, Hluzman, et al., each offere their analyses of the events leading up to Ukraine’s independence. Canadian premier.
Film is in Ukrainian, Russian, and Balarusian with English subtitles.
The film will be introduced by Yuri Shevchuk, lecturer of Ukrainian language and culture and director of the Ukrainian Film Club at Columbia University, New York. Discussion will follow the film screening.
The screening is co-sponsored by the Petro Jacyk Program, the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies, and the Ukrainian Film Club, Columbia University.
Recovered Gems of Ukrainian Classical Film: The Dream, 1964,
Director: Volodymyr Denysenko
Duration 91 min. Feature narrative, colour.
A biopic of the Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko, made on the occasion of his 150th anniversary. It features the first part of Shevchenko's life leading up to the writing of his rebellious poem "The Dream". Restored and digitally re-mastered in 2011 the film features the first appearance on the silver screen of the iconic Ukrainian actor Ivan Mykolaichuk (as Taras Shevchenko).
The film is in Ukrainian with English subtitles.
The film will be introduced by Yuri Shevchuk, lecturer of Ukrainian language and culture and director of the Ukrainian Film Club at Columbia University, New York. Discussion will follow the film screening. For more information about the film go to:
The screening is co-sponsored the Petro Jacyk Program, the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies, and the Ukrainian Film Club, Columbia University.
All films are with English subtitles. Free and open to the public.
For more information on Ukrainian films, go to the Ukrainian Film Club's website:
Past Lectures:
- Lecture Four: “A Ukrainian Despite Herself. The Cinema of Kira Muratova”
- Lecture Five: “Lecture Five”
- Lecture Six: “Language Wars in Ukrainian Cinema, The Triumphs and Defeats of Film Dubbing”
- Lecture Seven: "New Films and New Names from Ukraine"
- Lecture Eight: "Ukraine in the Focus of Spanish Filmmakers"
- Lecture Nine: "Revisiting Great Ukrainian Film Classics: Oleksandr Dovzhenko's Zvenyhora"
- Lecture Ten: "New Films from Ukraine"
- Lecture Eleven: "An Unknown Oleksandr Dovzhenko: Ivan (1932)"
- Lecture Twelve:The Great Famine in Film- "The Living"
- Lecture Thirteen: The Holocaust in Ukraine - Screening of "Spell Your Name" and a panel discussion
- Lecture Forteen: The Fourth Wave: Post-Soviet Ukrainian Emigration to the West
- Lecture Fifteen: Holodomor:Technology of Genocide
- Lecture Sixteen: Taras Bulba 2009
- Lecture Seventeen: Birds of Paradise 2008
- Lecture Eighteen:Bird Catcher and others
- Lecture Nineteen: PKP (Pilsudski Bought Petliura)
- Lecture Twenty: Assholes. Arabescues.
- Lecture Twenty One: White Bird with A Black Mark
- Lecture Twenty Two: New Films and New Names from Ukraine. A parade of Canadian premiers.
- Lecture Twenty Three: Kyiv Frescoes, The Stone Cross