Since its inception 14 years ago, the Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University has primarily focused on the work of directors and actors. Now for he first time , we would like to take a closer look at producers, the profession that is relatively new and in the process of defining itself in Ukraine’s contemporary film industry. After all, the old Soviet cinema from whose shadow the post-Soviet Ukrainian film is slowly emerging did not have film producers in the customary sense. Choosing from a dozen possible candidates this semester  we  showcase Olena Yershova. She comes from a celebrated filmmaking family; her father Kostiantyn Yershov wrote and directed eight films and is primarily celebrated for his screen adaptation of Mykola Hohol’s (Nikolai Gogol) story Viy, arguably the only horror film allowed to be made in the Soviet Union (1967).

Olena Yershova is a successful film producer in her own right with an impressive portfolio of more than ten feature films which garnered over a hundred awards worldwide. Her filmography includes My Joy (main competition at Cannes 2010), Frost (Directors’ Fortnight - Cannes 2017), Falling (Prix Du Public Jeanne Moreau at Premiers Plans, France, 2018), Gogita’s New Life (main competition at IDFA 2016), Motherland (Venice Critics’ Week 2015, Best Script and UNESCO Award nomination at the Asian Pacific Screen Awards 2015) and Blind Dates (Toronto IFF, Tokyo IFF, Palm Springs IFF, Berlinale - Forum, 2014). She has successfully worked not only with Ukrainian, but also, with Georgian and Turkish directors.

The forthcoming retrospective will showcase four feature films produced by Olena Yershova in cooperation with four different directors, three of them representing the new generation of Ukrainian filmmakers. Each film brings into focus an important aspect of the current Ukrainian reality.

Love Me, director Maryna Er Horbach, 2013, will open the retrospective at Columbia on September 19, 2018. It is a romance between a Turkish man and a Ukrainian woman that unexpectedly grows out of what began as just another sordid case of sex tourism.

Frost, 2017, director Sharunas Bartas of Lithuania, to be screened on October 17, 2018, is an unheroic road story of discovery when a selfless Lithuanian couple drives a truck loaded with humanitarian aid for Ukrainians fighting off Russian aggression in the Donbas. They quickly find themselves in the middle of a minefield that is today’s Ukraine, where there is no telling who is a friend and who is a foe. Watch a trailer >>>

Vulcano, 2018, director Roman Bondarchuk, of Ukraine, to be screened on October 24, 2018, is a tongue-in-cheek take on the Southern Ukrainian steppe and its denizens, fascinating, weird, unpredictable, and endearing at the same time. This is the land where operation Russia Spring found its ignominious end in 2014. The film contains some truly beautiful cinematography that is as memorable as it is breathtaking. Watch a trailer >>>

Falling, 2017, director Maryna Stepanska of Ukraine, to be screened on November 28, 2018. The drama is a psychological exploration of two young people deeply traumatized by life and looking for redemption and a new beginning, two young people who find love in the most unlikely of places.

Producer Olena Yershova will be present at the screenings of Frost and Volcano  to discuss her work and the current state of the Ukrainian film industry. All films are with English subtitles. Every event is free and open to the public. The retrospective is scheduled to take place at Columbia’s Deutsches Haus, 420 W116th Street, New York, N.Y.