All you need is love…

A random saturday in the streets of Lviv.

Olha Ilkyv

During our fundraisers and film presentations in the US, when asked about our inspiration making the film, there is one story we liked to tell.

One night, it was about 2am, Olia and I were sitting in a small dark editing room, physically and morally exhausted from working alone on a film that seemed to be going no where at that time. I was actually starting to tell Olia: listen, it looks like this is going no where, it is too hard to make it happen; maybe we should just give up and start all over working on some other project that would be more accessible.

Then, the conversation shifted and I asked her if she had recently been in contact with the people she had filmed in the summer of 2007. She answered: oh, I actually talked to Olha Ilkyv a few days ago; it looks like her cancer is getting much worse. But she said she is doing yoga in order to stay in good shape because she is waiting for us to come and film her next summer. She was actually asking what took me so long to call her; she thought we had forgotten about her.

Upon hearing this story, I gathered all my energy back and we continued to work. The thought that an 88 year old woman dying with cancer was doing yoga every day in order to stay alive and wait for us to come and film her story put a lot of responsibility on our shoulders.

This year, we did come back to film her. Her health is much worse than last year, but her energy is still the same. She is even hard to keep up with.

Olha Ilkyv was a messenger for the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the 1940s and was the secretary of the very controversial Roman Shukhevytch. The latter is considered to be a national hero for Ukrainians while being accused of anti-Semitism by Jews and of terrorism by Poles. Ilkyv had two small children while working with the UPA, and when she was caught by the KGB and about to be sent to the worst political prison in Siberia, her first thought was: what is going to happen to my children at home alone? She was forced to tell the KGB about their existence and thus they were placed in an orphanage under another name.

Years later, we followed Olha and her two children to the doorstep where she was arrested, the orphanage where the children were sent, the café where she met them for the first time after 14 years of prison, etc… (I won’t spoil the rest)

Yesterday, we also went to visit the man who pretended to be Olha’s husband in order to act as a cover for the house where Shukhevytch was hiding. One interesting anecdote is that Olha had to find a “fake” husband in order to justify her pregnancy from her real husband who was also with the UPA. That’s where the fake husband came in, and even managed to create a fake wedding picture, using both their pictures and the 1940s version of photoshop. We thought the result was pretty impressive. He was 21 years old at the time.

the fake wedding picture

In between two wives, the fake and the real one

Moshe in the basement

One day, we were sitting over coffee with some of Olia’s friend and a film director from Kyiv when we started talking about our film. The young film director remembered a joke he knew.

In a present day Ukrainian village, a man goes to the priest to confess his sins.

-Father, forgive me for I have sinned. -What’s the matter my son?-Well, you know, when the war started and the Germans came, they were going after all the Jews, and I had a Jewish neighbor, Moshe. Moshe was a good guy, I liked him, and when he asked me to hide him in my basement, I agreed, I couldn’t let him down.-So, what’s the problem in that?-Well, I was lying to the Germans, while hiding Moshe in my basement, and lying is a sin.
-You know my son, you were doing a good deed, and you were saving a man’s life, lying in that case is fine… You may go, your sins are forgiven.

The man doesn’t leave.

-But Father… there is something else… All that time, I was taking 50 rubles per day from Moshe.
-You know my son, times were very hard, you probably had to take some money from him in order to buy food and keep him alive… You may go, your sins are forgiven.

The man still doesn’t leave.

-But Father… there is something else… I still didn’t tell Moshe that the war is over.

When we met the “real” Moshe in Poland, after spending a day filming with him and his wife, we decided to tell him that joke in order to break the ice between us.

We thought it would be funny. He looked at us and said: but that’s not a joke! That story really happened to a man I know! He was hiding in a man’s house in a remote village, and he would have stayed there working for that man if his relatives didn’t find him years after the war was over.

I heart Lviv… except…

As I was trying to explain to our driver a few days ago, I found Lviv to be a wonderful city (douje harna Lviv). I absolutely love the old buildings, the paved streets, the moms in mini skirts walking their children in strollers, the endless cafes, the marshmallow clouds in clear blue skies, the cars that drive on the sidewalks, the amazing colorful sunsets that you wouldn’t find anywhere else, etc…

Well, I think I love everything about Lviv, except for:

-ATM (or Bankomat which randomly decide to start or stop working)

-Small grocery stores (unless you can explain what you want in Ukrainian you are bound to starve to death)

-The radio (bad pop music doesn’t help when you have 8+ hour trips)

-The weather (which suddenly changes and starts pouring rain on your expensive equipment)

Well, other than that, I think the city is simply beautiful…

Note: that was actually a monologue, not a real conversation, because even though I try to convince our multi-talented driver-turned PA-turned sound operator that if he understands some English he can probably speak it, I still have no luck in that. 

Aharon in Borislav

I am learning more and more that in order to make a documentary, one must have nerves of steel, the mentality of a politician, an incredible ability to negotiate, and a lot of money (but let’s not even go there).

We got back from Poland on the 8^th in the early morning, after driving overnight from Warsaw. We had to pass by Borislav and meet with the man who now owns the house where Aharon Weiss’ family was hidden during WWII.

The route we took from Warsaw to Borislav made us pass at 5 am by our own street in Lviv and we couldn’t even stop. We had to pretend we didn’t really care about a hot shower and hot tea. We had to be in Borislav in the early morning to make sure that we would be expected the next day at that house with Aharon.

As we get to Borislav, we are introduced to the dilemma of Mykola Yakovytch the present owner of the house. What do you do when your own house becomes a touristic attraction and the basement where you have old boxes and pieces of wood stacked becomes a holy place? In the mid-90s, when Aharon’s brother was Israel’s ambassador to Poland, the basement they were hiding in during the war was discovered, and people started coming in buses to visit. At one point Mykola Yakovytch lost his nerves. At the same time, the Weiss family got offended because they felt they had all rights to visit that place and did not feel responsible for people in buses. So for us the main challenge was: how do you “reconcile” between Mykola and Aharon in order to be able to film in that basement?

We were also facing another dilemma: Aharon was followed by another camera crew who wanted to film the same story in that same place…

Aharon and Mykola got reconciled because of sympathy over a common disease in the family, and the two film crews got reconciled when it started pouring rain and our camera was heroically saved by an umbrella from the other crew while their camera was covered by their own rain coat.

We all left at the end; happy, wet and reconciled.

The process of filmmaking

Major source of conflict: panorama (landscapes)! Olia and Petro can’t get enough of them, and we are constantly arguing if we should get another one or just go home pleaaaaaaseeeeeeeee…….

Very first day of filming in Poland in a Jewish cemetary.  For the record, she had to continue filming for 5 days in high heels.  She even did the 5 km march of life in those heels… or so she says, I think it was less than 5 km.  She says it hurts the same.

The guys were awake at 5am, showered and ready to go.  They fell back asleep while waiting for us.  Nothing could wake them up, not our laughs and not flash.  That’s what you get when you film all day and drive all night.

Polish anecdotes

Stashka (Florian’s sister)

After stopping in Przemysl, we were supposed to drive all the way to Wroclaw (completely opposite direction on the map) and interview Florian’s sister before going back to Warsaw. The trip would require filming during the day and then driving twice overnight. Can I just say that it’s not exactly our favorite thing to do?

Since our stay in Przemysl took unexpected dimensions and we decided to stay longer, Olia had to call Florian’s sister Stashka and postpone her interview until Sunday. It was hard enough convincing her to give us an interview in the first place, and I am learning that dealing with 80-something year olds requires unlimited time and patience. So Olia called her and tried to explain that we will need to postpone her interview for a day if possible, but since her Polish is getting rusty, she managed to tell her that she is coming from the state (she meant States as in USA but apparently said state as in government) with her “Partnerka” (also meant to say co-director but apparently said sexual partner).

So… this old Polish lady, already very suspicious of Ukrainians who allegedly killed her family, understood that there is this woman coming from the Ukrainian government with her lesbian lover to interview her. Do I need to specify that we didn’t get the interview?

This actually wasn’t quite so bad since we had already settled for another Polish character in Przemysl named Suzanna.

Suzanna

Suzanna is a ninety something year old Polish woman with such a strong character and such great storytelling skills that I was mesmerized by listening to her even though I could not understand anything. (I really don’t know why they don’t teach Ukrainian and Polish in Lebanese schools, it would have made everybody’s life easier now!)

Honestly, Suzanna wasn’t easier to deal with than Stashka but at least she agreed to film with us for two days. She told us the story of how she was with the Polish resistance fighting against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and was later on saved by a Ukrainian man. She clearly rememberd what horrible things UPA did to Poles but when the priest tried to remind her of what the Poles did to a UPA woman they had captured, she suddenly lost her memory. Suzanna was introduced to us by a Polish catholic priest Padre Bartminski now retired who works on the preservation of the Ukrainian and Jewish heritage in the part of Galicia that is now Poland. We met with him at his house and followed him as he showed us the various Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches and Jewish cemeteries that he helped restore. The interesting thing is that he would not take credit for his work. He told us that the initiative came entirely from the youth in his town, while the young people swore that he was the driving force behind everything.

Moshe

To start Moshe’s story, I should first specify that our few days in Poland would not have been half as fruitful as they were without the incredible help of two men: Stanislaw Stepien in Przemyls and John Kubiniec in Warsaw. Stanislav, a historian and a good friend of our camera operator Petro, introduced us to a friend of his, Waclaw Wierzbieniec who is one of the most respected scholars on issues of Jewish history in Eastern Europe. Waclaw then took us with him to the Rzesow Airport to meet Mohse and his wife Imuna. Moshe is a Holocaust survivor who comes back to Poland every year and takes part in the “March of Life”. Every year, people come from all over the world to walked the inverse route which through which the Rzeszow Jews were led to the Nazi concentration camp in Belzec. The most interesting part of Moshe’s story is that he had brought a gravestone to put in the old Jewish cemetery where his grandfather was buried. After a very symbolic and animated lunch at a restaurant appropriately named “Galicia” between Moshe, his wife, the Ukrainian historian Stanislaw and the Polish professor Waclaw, they all went to the cemetery, to help Moshe fulfill his task. Imagine three men Jewish, Ukrainian and Polish, working together trying to use an old manual drill to make a whole in the wall and fix the gravestone. To make things even more dramatic, it started pouring rain on them. Good thing we had an umbrella for the camera.

Side note: we were very happy to have an example of “reconciliation” happening right there in front of our eyes when Stanislaw and Waclaw started mumbling to each other: this is taking forever! Why didn’t he bring a normal drill? Where did he find this manual piece of crap? And then Moshe gets tired as well and mumbles: I could have brought an electrical drill but I was afraid those Poles would steal it at the border! (no comment).

The Polish Ukrainian border

So…. I had heard it was bad. That’s an understatement. We got to the border at 4am. We stayed in 4 lines so far, got two car inspections and a passport control. It’s now 7am. After presenting our documents, I looked ahead and noticed another line of cars. I naively ask: why another line?

My friends look at me surprised: well, that’s the Polish side! We only passed the Ukrainian checkpoint.

Still in the car, still waiting.

Note: one very interesting incident, almost worth all that wait: we got to see not one but two scooters each carrying a man and a refrigerator. I swear we didn’t have anything to drink except water.

Note 1: we stayed waiting at the border for 7 hours.

Note 2: Przemysl is absolutely beautiful.

Note 3: We had a great day of filming yesterday with a Polish priest who works on preserving the Ukrainian and Jewish heritage, and a woman who was in the Polish resistance as a partisan and was saved by a Ukrainian man.

Note 4: Something had to go wrong after a successful day of filming. It is raining today.

Our last 50 kopiyok – or things that only happen in (making) movies

When the following incidents happened, our first thought was: this is going on the blog!
So, at the risk of alarming my entire family back home, I will share…

When Olia was worried about ways to get money in Ukraine, I thought she was exaggerating and making a big deal out of nothing. I should have trusted her.
I will try to make a very long story short: our first ATM card was swallowed by the machine. Our second one was not yet activated. After spending hours on the phone with Bank of America, the customer service representative swore the card had been activated, and the employees at the Ukrainian National Bank swore that they couldn’t take money out of it. My personal checking card wouldn’t work with them either. Great!

Imagine getting a major grant from a foundation and not being able to access that money when you need it…

We had lunch with our last 100 hryvnias (20 bucks), we were left with 50 kopioks (equivalent of a few cents) and decided to stop wasting time on this issue and head on the road, looking for the house of one of our characters. The making of this film is becoming more interesting than the film itself. We stopped on the road, as the journey takes about two hours and we had ice cream with our last 50 kopioks.

As we get to the town, I am courted by a 60-something year old man with silver front teeth (see picture); we are led to the house of a man who was supposed to know something about our character only to find him laying on his death bed (literally); we meet his lamenting wife who turns out to be a drug addict; etc… We basically went from house to house looking for any lead on our story and every time we found ourselves in the middle of situations more absurd than we could dream of.

On the way back after a very very very long day, our driver lent us his phone and our cameraman bought us beer. Ukrainians might not have a very efficient banking service but at least they’re gentlemen!

Note: the ATM card worked today. We are not starving anymore.

Bunkers and Masochism

Yesterday morning, we met with the organizers of the Kino Film Festival in Lviv. This four day event apparently draws hundreds of people every year to watch films from 6pm until 4am. You really have to love movies!

Our video installation is going to be shown there twice, first as a short film part of the regular festival, and second, as a standalone installation. One of Olia’s friends proposed to re-create the entire set up in an art gallery which is located in the basement of an old monastery where people were hiding during the Nazi persecutions. We were trying to “recreate” basements for quite some time (first at AU and then Artomatic), so it was quite chilling to know that the installation was going to be shown inside a real basement that was hiding people.

The person in charge of the festival is also an artist who works with blown glass, and so at the end of our meeting, we were offered traditional Ukrainian Pysankys made out of blown glass. Very nice.

The entire morning was basically spent meeting people, but there were two incidents that are worth sharing. Apparently, Mr Masoch (from Masochism that is) was born in Lviv. So we met people who opened a café-bar dedicated to him. A big statue of Masoch was built at the entrance and waitresses were serving food dressed in leather and chains. Dying to know what’s inside? I will leave it to your imagination… a reason more to visit Lviv.

Another unusual café that we visited (a little more related to our film this time) was called Kryivka or Bunker. It is basically a recreation of a bunker where the Ukrainian Insurgent Army partisans used to hide from the KGB. To be allowed in, you have to knock on the door; someone opens a small window and asks you: are you a communist? You have to say no. Are you from the KGB? No. The door opens and you find yourself in front of a large man in the UPA attire, holding a fake gun. You are then offered a drink which is supposed to kill you on the spot if you were from the KGB. f you’re still alive, the bookshelf behind the doorman swivels and you are led down a dark stairway into the bunker. Everything there seems to be re-created authentically, at least to the eyes of a foreigner like me, and we know for sure that the people who created the place gathered a ton of archival pictures from that time period (this is what led us to them actually). One minor thing though, you can get wifi internet access, and you can even access facebook in the bunker.