Between a Rock and a Hard Place

We are always happy to find out about something we didn't know about! Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Ukrainian Cinema since Independence is about to roll out its 26th lecture! (Yikes, have we been living under a rock or what?)


Lecture 26, will feature The Firecrosser (2012) a film by director Mykhailo Illienko. The lecture, followed by a screening of the film, will take place at 6pm on February 14 at the Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave in Toronto.

This melodrama is inspired by the real-life story of one Ivan Datsenko (Ivan Dodoka in the film), native of the village of Chernechyi Yar in central Ukraine. He becomes a fearsome fighter pilot during World War Two, earning the highest military distinction bestowed by Stalin. He escapes first from a Nazi and then Soviet concentration camps, flees to Canada, where - suspend your disbelief - Datsenko allegedly becomes the chieftain of an Iroquois tribe. This is the first in years Ukrainian film that received a national distribution and enjoyed an unprecedented box-office success in Ukraine. Film is in Russian, Ukrainian, and some English with English subtitles.

The film will be introduced by Yuri Shevchuk, lecturer of Ukrainian language and culture and director of the Ukrainian Film Club at Columbia University, New York. Discussion will follow the film screening.

Lecture 27 titled Soviet Film and Stalin's War on Independent Peasants, 1920-1930 will follow on February 15 starting at 6pm in Room 108, North Building, Munk School of global Affairs at 1 Devonshire Place.

Both screenings are co-sponsored by the Petro Jacyk Program, the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies, and the Ukrainian Film Club, Columbia University.

You can read more about these and earlier lectures at: Between a Rock and a Hard Place