CANADA COURIER: Canada's rising 21st century star (03/23/97)

CANADA COURIER

by Christopher Guly

Canada's rising 21st century star

Ihor Krut is a Ukrainian Canadian to watch in the 21st century. The 34-year-old videographer is developing a television series he hopes will be broadcast in Canada and Ukraine.

It's modeled after one produced by Toronto's hip CITY-TV called "The Originals," which profiles outstanding Canadians. Mr. Krut, who is also based in Toronto, hopes to do something similar.

His series is called "Ten Video Portraits" and, like "The Originals," would feature a subject discussing his or her life in monologue style. In other words, no interviewer would be on screen. "Ten Video Portraits" would fit into a 30-minute TV time slot and would highlight the life and career of outstanding Canadians and Americans of Ukrainian descent.

Mr. Krut, who hails from Chervonohrad in the Lviv Oblast, has already taped one program with award-winning Canadian journalist Victor Malarek. Other names on his wish list include Oscar-winning actor Jack Palance, Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow, Canadian Supreme Court Justice John Sopinka, Canadian literary icon Janice Kulyk-Keefer, Slavic studies scholar George Luckyj and New York-based jazz pianist John Stetch.

Ukraine's independently run ICTV has expressed interest in broadcasting the series, which would have to be dubbed in Ukrainian when the subject cannot speak the language. Although the series will be taped primarily in English, finding a Canadian broadcaster to carry it won't be easy.

Undoubtedly, Toronto's CMFT International is the best fit. But it already carries the Ukrainian-language series "Svitohliad," with which Mr. Krut was once involved as a reporter. He may also butt heads with Jurij Klufas, who produces the weekly series "Kontakt," seen in several Canadian and U.S. cities - and with which Mr. Krut is involved as a segment producer, reporter and camera operator.

Mr. Klufas, whose programming is more news-oriented, supported Mr. Krut's application for funding from the Ukrainian Canadian Taras Shevchenko Foundation. Mr. Krut's request landed him about 10 percent of the series' $40,000 ($29,000 U.S.) budget, or enough to produce one episode.

Now, if he approaches CMFT, Mr. Krut worries about ill will. "Klufas will say that I'm using his connections," says Mr. Krut. He need not fret.

Mr. Krut's proposed focus on Ukrainian North American achievement is exactly what the community needs. So far, no one has compiled a composite video sketch of our stars.

As an up-and-coming bright light, Mr. Krut is the right man to do the job. Before he came to Canada in the summer of 1989, Mr. Krut amassed an impressive career in the arts.

In 1986 he received an undergraduate degree in music and art history, as well as a diploma in choir conducting, from the Kyiv Institute of Culture. Following his graduation, Mr. Krut spent three years with the Lviv State Opera and Ballet Theater performing as both an actor and chorus member.

Itching to expand his creative landscape, Mr. Krut, who spoke not a word of English, decided to visit a distant relative in Canada. He never left - but working as a restaurant busboy and telemarketer wasn't exactly how Mr. Krut envisioned his life to be in Canada.

Getting a job as library manager at the St. Vladimir Institute in Toronto was a bit more suited for a man who speaks Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and now English, fluently. Mr. Krut stayed there until 1993. Now, he says his career is in "transition." Perhaps, evolution is a better word.

Despite a personal setback last year, when his six-month marriage to a Ukrainian-born woman ended, Mr. Krut has a lot going for him. He's gifted with a lot of talent, filled with enormous creativity, bubbling with almost boyish enthusiasm and equipped with handsome telegenic looks that lend themselves to work in front of the camera. Mr. Krut is poised for success. With moral and financial community support, his dream for an international audience to see "Ten Video Portraits" will become reality.

In fact, Mr. Krut, who became a Canadian citizen two years ago, is already looking beyond that project. This summer, he hopes to use his photographic skills to begin work on a book that would capture images of contemporary Ukraine through black-and-white stills.

"When I returned to Ukraine two years ago, after being away for five years, I fell in love with the country again," he explains. "It was so exotic."

Apart from getting some dollars to back his ideas, Mr. Krut has to decide on a name for his company. He's leaning toward calling it "Andromedia," a play on the name of the Greek mythological figure Andromeda.

Jealous of her beauty, Poseidon, the god of the sea, sent a monster to destroy Andromeda. However, she was rescued by Perseus, son of Zeus, who slew the beast and married Andromeda.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

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