Ukrainian Canadian professionals honor filmmaker Halya Kuchmij (07/30/06)

Ukrainian Canadian professionals honor filmmaker Halya Kuchmij

by Oksana Zakydalsky

TORONTO - Filmmaker Halya Kuchmij became the fourth recipient of the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Association Media Award, on June 29, receiving the honor from UCPBA Toronto president Roman Nazarewycz.

Ms. Kuchmij has worked in film and television as a producer/director for over 25 years, initially as an independent filmmaker, then with the National Film Board of Canada and finally with the CBC.

During her 16 years with the CBC-TV's documentary unit ("The Journal," "Man Alive," "Witness" and "Life & Times") she has filmed around the world, producing and directing six one-hour network specials, 35 network documentaries as well as countless current affairs magazine items.

Her film subjects have included profiles of Nelson Mandela, Spike Milligan, Sir Laurens van der Post, Lorne Greene and Burton Cummings, and she has made documentaries on Americans held hostage in Beirut, the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, international noise pollution, native justice in the Arctic and euthanasia.

While working in mainstream film and TV, she has frequently sought out specifically Ukrainian topics. This began with her first independent documentary film, "Strongest Man in the World" - the story of Michael Swistun, a Ukrainian Canadian strongman/magician from rural Manitoba who toured western Canada during the depression with his one-man show. The film won the best theatrical documentary Genie in 1981 and catapulted her career into documentary filmmaking.

Her Ukrainian-themed films include "Laughter in My Soul" - the story of Jacob Maydanyk, the creator of a popular comic strip with a Ukrainian immigrant hero. She was one of the director/producers for the series "Canada: A People's History," making "Episode 11: The Great Transformation," which told the story of the first Ukrainian immigration to Alberta.

In 1988 Ms. Kuchmij traveled to Ukraine to film "Millennium" on Ukraine's 1,000 years of Christianity. Asked to do a film on Canadians in World War II, she made "The Enduring Legend of Pierre Le Canadien: The Peter Dmytruck Story," a story about a Saskatchewan Ukrainian in the Canadian armed forces who was shot down over France, fought with the French Resistance and was killed in the war. He became a hero to the French but is unknown to most Canadians.

Ms. Kuchmij's films have won over 30 national and international awards, among them the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's Genie (for film) and Gemini (for TV). Last year she was nominated for two Gemini awards: in the biography category for "Lord Black of Crossharbour," the story of Conrad Black, and in the sports category for "The Life and Times of Northern Dancer," the first Canadian-born horse to win the Kentucky Derby.

Ms. Kuchmij graduated from the University of Toronto and York University, is a director fellow of the Los Angeles-based American Film Institute and was a recipient of the prestigious Asia Pacific Media Fellowship.

She now has three projects in the works: the feature documentary "Living Strings," a history of the bandura and the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus under Hryhorij Kytasty; a biography of artist William Kurelek; and a film on Ukrainian war heroes in the Canadian armed forces, a project under development with the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center.

The UCPBA Media Award is presented every five years. Previous recipients include TV producer and broadcasting executive Ivan Fecan, TV comedienne Luba Goy and investigative journalist Victor Malarek.

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