Ukrainian Films in Eurofest Montreal

Eurofest, the first Eastern European Montreal Film Festival was held from May 25 to June 2, 2007 at Cinema du Parc in Montreal which included documentaries, feature and short films.

Eurofest was co-organized by Rocade Association, a newly formed association by actor- film director Daniel Bacur and by Crissaro Communications. The film festival organizing team was headed by Simona Hodos with program co-ordinator Simona Pogonat of the Romanian community. Prof. S. Anastasin of The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University participated in an advisory capacity.

Various East European cultural communities in Montreal were contacted by the organizers of Eurofest to assist in preparing for the eight-day film festival, as well as, their respective embassies in Canada. The cultural groups represented at Eurofest are the Romanian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Ukrainian and Croatian communities. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Quebec Provincial Council and the Embassy of Ukraine in Canada agreed to help support and sponsor the festival.

Included in the festival were three award- winning Ukrainian films.  Featured were the films titled Famine ’33 by Oles Yanchuk on the Famine-Genocide in Soviet Ukraine, the documentary films Freedom Had A Price by Yurij Luhovy on the internment of Ukrainians in Canada from 1914 to 1920 and Harvest of Despair by Slawko Nowytski and Yurij Luhovy on the 1932-33 Famine-Genocide.

Eurofest’s mission is to highlight an interesting yet little known cultural space representing Eastern Europe, within Montreal’s unique multicultural mosaic, nicknamed “the city of festivals”.  The festival also included films of Canadian filmmakers of East European background. An illustrated program booklet was published with a synopsis of all the films entered in the festival as well as, a brief biography of all the filmmakers.

A press conference was held on May 9 which included Zorianna Hrycenko-Luhova representing the Ukrainian Canadian Congress who congratulated Rocade for conceiving and organizing Eurofest.  She added that “Ukraine has had a long history of exceptional films, beginning with Oleksander Dovzhenko, despite the decades of severe censorship and restrictive creative film possibilities for Ukrainian Cinema prior to the fall of the Soviet Union.  Only now, the countries of Eastern Europe are finally able to try and freely produce unique, thought-provoking and creative films and interact with the international community of filmmakers”.

It is hoped that more Ukrainian films will be made available to be featured in Eurofest Montreal in what is expected to be an annual Eastern European Montreal film festival event, financially supported by the City of Montreal and Caisse Desjardins Quebec Credit Union. Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay stated, “this event shows off Montreal’s cosmopolitan character and reinforces its reputation as a city of culture”.