Kino Film Project event in Philadelphia May 30th

If you are in the Philadelphia region, we invite you to attend another screening and discussion at the Ukrainian League of Philadelphia hosted by the Kino Film Project on May 30th 2008.

We will l discuss the creative process behind the making of the film, will screen segments of Land of Dilemmas, and will describe our vision for how the documentary will continue reconciliation.

More details about the event are posted on the Kino Film Project website.

http://www.kinofilmproject.org/future%20events.htm

May 22nd Fundraising Event

If you are in the DC area, we invite you to attend a Fundraising Event that the US-Ukraine Foundation is hosting for us on May 22^nd, 2008. The event will include a screening, discussion and a reception.

Reception starts at 5.50 pm
Screening starts at 6.15pm
1701 K Street, Suite 903, Washington DC
Places are limited; please RSVP by May 20^th to ulyana@usukraine.org

We look forward to seeing you there!

Lviv’s mental map

In his recent book “Living Apart Together”, Blair A. Ruble talks about phenomena of “mental maps” each of us has developed in our memories of our childhood streets. Ruble quotes Ian Sinclair’s book “Lights out for the territory” in saying that “one of the most seductive questions to be asked of any city dweller is ‘what did your street look like in the past?’ . Residents of the same street live in dissimilar realities”. Thus, Ruble points out that “the frightfully important task of urban history in richly diverse communities often becomes the arduous mission of identifying a civitas that can be sufficiently wide as to embrace all fo the varieties that makes cities both urban and urbane. Otherwise, desperate and conflicting groups and individuals live dangerously apart even as they live snuggly together.”

That said, we thought it would be interesting to discuss the history of Lviv before, during and after the second world war from the perspective of Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish communities. Why Lviv (Lemberg, Lwow, Lvov)? Because it was the capital of Galicia (or Halychyna – Galizen) and because it is one of the rare cities in Europe that was characterized by such an extreme multi-cultural diversity from medieval until modern times. It was inhabited by five large ethnic groups: Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, Jews and Armenians, and hosted by five large denominations. After the Second World War though, according to different sources, Lviv lost from 80 to 87% of its local population.

As Blair puts it, the physical city is repossessed by one group through selective policies of public and private restoration, preservation and neglect. The metaphysical city is restructured by a selective retelling of history through tours, guide books, textbooks, films and internet sites.

What do you think is till missing from Lviv’s mental guide books? What parts of the history of your community should be more recognized? What should the present population of Lviv know about their city’s past? We hope that together we can re-create a metaphysical city that would make us all more aware of each other’s history and appreciate this complex city even more.

Land of Dilemmas video installation at Artomatic

May 9th - June 15th, 2008 - Washington, DC - Land of Dilemmas video installation to be displayed as part of Artomatic art exhibit

Our video installation Land of Dilemmas which focuses on one of the stories in the longer documentary is going to be exhibited at Artomatic from May 9^th until June 15^th 2008.
Artomatic is a month-long multimedia arts event that draws together visual artists, musicians and performers and brings their work to the community without charge (www.artomatic.org).

Where: Capitol Plaza I, 1200 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002
Metro: Red Line, New York Ave., M St exit
Land of Dilemmas will be displayed on the 4th floor

When: May 9 – June 15, 2008

Wednesdays and Thursdays 5 pm – 10 pm
Fridays and Saturdays noon – 2 am
Sunday noon – 10 pm

About the video installation:

The video installation “Land of Dilemmas” is a part of an on-going multimedia project by Olha Onyshko and Sarah Farhat, which also includes an interactive website and a feature length documentary currently in production.

In the region of Galicia that is now Western Ukraine, during and after the Second World War, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were fueling ethnic conflicts among Ukrainians, Poles and Jews in order to advance their own political interests. This project features stories of people who had to face major dilemmas and who chose to do what’s right rather than what’s easy.

They refused to be caught up in the general hatred derived from inter-ethnic conflicts and risked everything in order to save the life not only of strangers, but also of members of an ethnic or religious group perceived to be their enemy.

The filmmakers want this piece to be more than just a video, and more than just a tool for recording memory. They want to use the project as a way to foster a dialog around issues that are still very sensitive today. The stories that show the best in people during the worst times will set the tone for a constructive dialog among the communities at stake.

First community building event

April 3rd, 2008 - Washington, DC - First event unveiling the documentary in progress Land of Dilemmas.

Our first community building event took place at the US Ukraine Foundation’s facility in downtown Washington DC. We screened a short video which focused on one of the stories in the film and held a discussion with the audience afterwards.

People were very enthusiastic about this difficult topic and very supportive of the idea of the film. One concern that was raised by several audience members is the fact that we call the region in our film “Galcia” but since most of its territory is currently located in Western Ukraine, they felt it should be called by the Ukrainian name Halychyna. They were also concerned that it could be confused with the Spanish Galicia.

People were also curious to know how we personally got involved in doing this film. Olha talked about her growing up in Lviv Ukraine, always feeling that her nation was the biggest victim in the history of the 20^th Century. When she first got a camera and decided to make a film about her city, she just wanted to show the world the past suffering of the Ukrainian community. But as she delved deeper into the stories she was investigating, she started to realize that Ukrainians were not the only ones living in that part of the world and that there were other communities who suffered as well. She also became aware of the fact that the young people of today should get a better understanding of the different versions of history in this part of the world in order to be able to reach tolerance and understanding.

Sarah on the other hand, talked about how her involvement in the project started as a coincidence when she met Olha in the fall of 2006. Back then she knew very little about that whole region of the world but she quickly became fascinated by the stories of people who were able to show such courage in the midst of tremendous hardship. She also took this matter to heart since her home country Lebanon was torn by horrific religious and ethnic conflicts during a civil war that lasted for fifteen years. She also started to realize that the ethnic conflicts fueled by the interests of big powers in Galicia-Halychyna were not so different from those that led to the war in her country.

After the presentation and discussion, people were able to discuss all of those issues more informally during a reception.