Cinenews

Ukrainian Films in the Making

July 20, 2008

Bohdan Stupka (center) with Avalon Barrie(left) and Liudmila Shyriaeva (right) in "Sappho”, an erotic melodrama made at the Yalta Film Studio, written and directed by Robert Crombie.

As happens in May and June of every year, the UFCCU moves to Ukraine to re-galvanize existing contacts, establish new ones, replenish its film library, and get the feel of the action on the ground. And there was plenty of action in a number of domains: film festivals, new film releases, films about to be released, and projects underway. Among the film-makers working on new films are: 
 
Ihor Podolchak, whose directorial debut in the narrative feature genre, "Las Meninas," is currently doing  world festival circuit, started preparatory work on his next narrative feature film based on Witold Gombrowicz’s novel “Kosmos.” This project, as was the case with Las Meninas, is privately funded.

Valery Yambursky, known to the audiences of our Club by his short feature comedy "Stray Dog" (Prybluda), is shooting on location this summer and fall in the village of Kolentsi near Ivankiv, north of Kyiv, and near Vinnytsia. His first full-length feature currently has the provisional title of "Crisis" (Kryza). The screenplay is based on a story by Volodymyr Yavorivsky. This tragicomedy takes place in the mid-1990s with a dead woman as the main protagonist. Her burial provokes a bitter rivalry between the old and new generation of villagers. Director of photography is Vitaliy Zymovets (“Bumbarash”). Cast: Mykhailo Holubovych, Yevhen Papernyi, Viktor Andrienko, Larysa Rusnak, Yuri Yevsiukov, Artem Lebedev, Iya Yamburska, and Radyslav Ponomarenko. The film is in vernacular Ukrainian. Funded by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Tourism, it is expected to be completed by February 2009.

Lesia Kalynska, a New York-based Ukrainian film director, is editing her first feature documentary provisionally entitled “In the Land of Lost Crusaders.” Her co-director is Tbilisi-based Giorgi Kharebava, script-writer is New York-based Niko Abazadze. This US-Georgian-Ukrainian co-production is about an ancient tradition of knighthood and sword-fighting surviving today in the inaccessible settlements of the Khevsureti region in the Republic of Georgia. The DOP is the internationally recognized Ukrainian photographer Serhiy Mykhalchuk.

Valentyn Vasianovych, the author of the award-winning "Counterclockwise" is at pre-production stage on his first narrative feature, provisionally entitled "Do You Play Chess?" (Vy hraiete v shakhy?). This Ukrainian-Polish co-production will be a comedy unfolding against a distant backdrop of the Chornobyl nuclear power accident and its aftermath in a post-Soviet Ukraine. Funded by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Taras Tomenko, ("Shooting Gallery", "Liza", "Parched Land") in late fall 2008, will be starting the shoot of his first narrative feature, a dramatic love story with Chornobyl as its background. He is currently working on a screenplay for the film.

 

Krzysztof Zanussi is expected to complete his new film “Heart in the Palm” (Serce w dloni), this fall. The Polish-Ukrainian co-production is a story of two people in completely opposed circumstances: one, Stefan is suicidal; the other, Kostiantyn, a millionaire, is fighting for his life and looking for a donor heart, ready to do anything it takes to obtain it. Says Mr. Zanussi, “This film is about the sense of human life and about how the gift of life can be thoughtlessly rejected because some people are not capable of appreciating it.” Starring Bohdan Stupka, Szymon Bobrowski, Marek Kudelko, Nina Andrycz, Ostap Stupka.

 

Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University© 2015. For more information please contact Yuri Shevchuk