Ukrainian Canadian

The former orphanage worker-turned documentary filmmaker debuted her second film about Ukrainian orphans last night at Hot Docs in Toronto, ‘High Five: A Suburban Adoption Saga”:

Julia Ivanova premiered her first film ‘Family Portrait in Black & White’ 2 years ago at HotDocs which featured a Ukrainian women who adopts almost 30 children, which more than half are black who grow up in Ukraine.

This year’s film showcases the trials and tribulations of a B.C. childless couple who try and adopt two Ukrainian sisters from a orphanage in Horodnia (northern Ukraine), 7-year old Alyona and 8-year old Snezhana. The couple later learns the sisters have three siblings and try and adopt them all – 15-year-old Sergei, 16-year-old Yuliya, and six-year-old Sasha.

The film shows the challenges with adopting children across the age spectrum, with the eldest having the most trouble fitting in. Yuliya used to be the children’s protector, but finds that’s no longer her role, and struggles for independence from her new parents as she reaches adulthood. There is a language barrier at the beginning of the family’s relationship, but the parents did not show any signs of learning any of the children’s language in the movie. The parents face their own struggles connecting with the children at times, and the financial difficulties with adopting all of them (the movie claims around $200,000) and how it has drained their savings. The father is a nurse who eventually works up in the arctic a month at a time for additional income, and the mother is on disability from a car accident (which is the reason they did not try to have their own children).

The children also have to deal with the physical and emotional battle scars of their past – we are told some have learning disabilities (which are not thoroughly addressed in the film), Sergei suffers from lack of a growth hormone that leaves him only 4’6” tall entering adulthood, and at least one girl appears to have some form of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The younger children appear to adapt better than their own older siblings, who want to return to Ukraine to visit their old friends.

The movie itself provides a good glimpse into the life of an adopted family and the struggles of immigrating, fitting and growing up. The movie is solely focused on the family and offers little into any politics (there was a state-wide adoption ban from the government) and life outside the family (there is little footage of the children’s past lives in the orphanage). Julia even interjects herself into the documentary, especially during conflicts, when the children shut themselves off from communication. She is able to interview them in their native Russian to hear their true feelings no whatever matter is pressing them. Filming the family in their home most of the time can certainly be challenging, as the camera cannot be candid in their small house – sometimes the conversations that the family have feel a little forced, most likely to save face in front of the camera. Nonetheless the true feelings do come out and are captured in the film, making it worthwhile to see.

High Five: A Suburban Adoption Saga airs again as part of Hot Docs:

Today, May 1st at 4:00 PM at the Isabel Bader Theatre (at the University of Toronto campus near the ROM)

Saturday, May 4th at  4:00 PM at The Regent

The CBC has also written up an additional preview on the movie

The latest in the struggles for Ukrainian-Canadian issues such as the Holodomor and WW1 Internment to be included in the upcoming Canadian Museum of Human Rights continues to get worse:

After fighting for a spot at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, Ukrainian-Canadians are asking just how much respect coverage of the Holodomor will receive when it’s located right next to the bathroom.

Read the rest of the article

Stories of the Holodomor have "either been ignored or minimalized" and the history of Ukrainian-Canadian internment camps will be addressed only by "a nondescript picture" rather than a full-fledged exhibit.

…

The subject of the Holodomor is relegated to a minor panel in a small obscure gallery near the museum’s public toilets.

"This is offensive, intolerable and jeopardizes the credibility of the museum to provide a balanced and objective perspective of key Canadian and global human rights stories," said the release from spokeswoman Darla Penner.

"The Holodomor is the lens through which the museum can teach the crimes of communism which were responsible for the subjugation, persecution and destruction of tens of millions of people."

Read the rest of the article

UCC President Paul Grod released details of the museum’s current plans in a video the group posted last month, here are some notes I made on it:

(At around 5:50) Grod says that WW1 Internment will not have a kiosk/exhibit, only a picture on the wall above Japanese Internment.

There will be a separate Holocaust room, which will include genocide discussion – the Lemkin model with background discussion, and the Holodomor will be discussed among other genocides.

The Holodomor will be featured in a separate "Hope and Hardwork" room, on the second floor, with "high-traffic location to the toilets" (at 9:00). The room will contain the 5 Canadian-recognized genocides, including the Holocaust (which has its own room as well).

The UCC has new demands: A dedicated kiosk for Internment, and to showcase the effect of War Measures Act for immigrants to Canada.

Watch the video

The UCC initially supported the museum 10 years ago, when promised to support prominent displays for the Holodomor and WW1 Internment. Last year though the museum decided not to have a permanent Holodomor display after all. The UCC, along with other groups like the UCCLA who started a postcard campaign, have urged Canadians to contact their MPs to support inclusiveness and no community be elevated above others.

Last night on the Slice channel, some Ukrainian flair was shown on the wedding show ‘Four Weddings Canada’ where brides rate each other’s weddings and the winner receives a free honeymoon. A Toronto Ukrainian couple’s wedding was featured at St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Church near Ossington station St. Nicholas church near Trinity Bellwoods. The reception had Ukrainian dancers and helped them beat out the other brides for the grand prize, an all paid-for honeymoon. You can watch the entire episode online (it starts around 30:00):

Also, check out some pictures from the event:

A recent episode of the Ukrainian-Canadian affairs show Kontakt aired an interview with Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney. A great interview, where many good topics were touched upon:

• Immigration Issues in Canada
• Super Visas and family sponsorship
• Canada’s position on democracy in Ukraine
• Asylum of former KGB operative Mikhail Lennikov

Definitely worth a watch:

[YouTube]

In 1988 the CBC produced a great documentary exploring the history of Ukraine, its culture and its politics as it reached across to Canada through 100 years of immigration. It covers the origins of Ukrainian nationalism, the waves of immigration to Canada and their challenges, and even looking forward as to what it means to be a Canadian of Ukrainian descent – before the collapse of the Soviet Union! It was produced in commemoration of 1,000 years of Christianity in Ukraine and I highly recommend a watch, if for anything the 80’s hair-do’s and aviator glasses :

[Ukrainian-Canadians: A Time to Remember]

Please keep in mind this off a VHS tape, so the quality isn’t as great as the videos nowadays. I just happened to stumble across this video at the library, and I couldn’t find any more information about it online, and had never heard about it before. It has no DVD version that I’m aware of, and is not on the CBC Archives site.

As the government dismantles their libraries , and the CBC abandons their music archives, along with the transition to digital, I wonder how many great Ukrainian works will be lost to time? It’s happened to civilizations before us.