Festivals |
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May-June, 2009
The absence of new films is a curious backdrop for an unprecedented explosion of new film festivals in Ukraine, each coveting international status. On May 15-17, 2009 Kharkiv was venue to the first edition of the Kharkiv Lilac Film Festival. The name was borrowed from the title of the book “Les Lilas de Kharkiv” (… Kharkov in the French original) (1990) by the renowned French actress Mylene Demongeot whose mother Klavdia Trubnikova was born in Kharkiv and considered herself a Ukrainian. After the Bolshevik invasion of Ukraine in 1918 Trubnikova fled her native city and eventually found her home in France. Ms. Demongeot arrived in Kharkiv to inaugurate the film event meant to celebrate her achievement on screen, her Ukrainian heritage and her mother Klavdia. The popular national daily Ukraina Moloda, reported Miss Demongeot as saying that she had dug into the deepest roots of the Trubnikov family and found out that they were in deed Ukrainians, not Russians. Said she, “When I say ‘the Russian people’ I mean the Slavs. But we, Ukrainians, have always been different. Ukraine the fatherland of the Cossacks, has her own language, and her own history.” This was Ms. Demongeot’s second trip to Ukraine. Her first one took place in 1993 when she acted in the French-Russian co-production “The Telegraph Route.” In her public appearances now Ms. Demogeot said ‘diakuiu’ the Ukrainian for ‘thank you’. The city of Kharkiv presented her with a traditional Ukrainian shirt embroidered white on white, she also left a plaster imprint of her hand to be cast for a future alley of stars in Kharkiv.
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