Yuri Shevchuk, lecturer of Ukrainian and the founding director of the Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University has been elected member of the Ukrainian Film Academy (UFA) . The Ukrainian Film Academy is Ukraine’s equivalent of the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Its goal is to advance Ukrainian filmmaking. Every year the UFA awards its prize the Golden Dzyga in 18 different categories.

Yuri Shevchuk’s election as voting member of the UFA is a sign of recognition by the Ukrainian filmmaking community of the work the Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University has done to promote Ukrainian cinema in New York, the United States, Canada and other countries.

Since its founding in October 2004, the Club has been the only permanently active forum for Ukrainian cinema outside Ukraine . At least once a month it holds screenings and discussions on Columbia campus and in other venues in and outside New York City. The Club built one of the largest collections of Ukrainian films with English subtitles in the world. The collection includes classical, contemporary, Soviet and post-Soviet Ukrainian films, rare silent movies and debut films by now established directors.

The Club has made it its priority to give the voice and international visibility to the young generation of Ukrainian filmmakers in general and female filmmakers in particular. Besides New York City the Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University has screened and discussed Ukrainian films on numerous occasions in Boston, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Juan, PR, Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton as well as in Cambridge, UK, Granada, Spain, Milan, Rome, and Naples, Italy, Greifswald, Germany and of course Ukraine.

In addition to voting on the best achievement in Ukrainian filmmaking every year, the membership in the Ukrainian Film Academy gives its members the opportunity to view all the new films offered for the Golden Dzyga consideration.