Browsing: New releases

“Mr. Jones,” a feature film written by Andrea Chalupa and directed by the Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter Agnieszka Holland, is a joint Polish, Ukrainian and British production that was premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019 and released in the United States in April of this year. Its Ukrainian title is “The Price of Truth,” and at its center is one man’s struggle to get to the truth about Joseph Stalin’s famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933, which the regime was hiding from the outside world on the eve of the diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States.

“Mr. Jones” is based on real people and real events. The movie’s central character is Gareth Jones, a young Welsh journalist who travels to the Soviet Union in the early 1930s hoping to interview Stalin. Instead, he ends up uncovering the dictator’s big secret, the Ukrainian famine. Jones’s principal antagonist is the Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent of The New York Times Walter Duranty, who uses his considerable status to publicly attack Jones and deny the existence of the famine. The two leading actors, James Norton (Jones) and Peter Sarsgaard (Duranty), brilliantly capture this struggle for truth during what was one of the darkest periods in European history.

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It seemed like yesterday that a little girl with blonde pig tails came over to our home in Parma, Ohio, to play with my daughter Larissa and her little brother Marko. They were a creative little bunch who played out their make-believe stories in our wooded backyard. But there was a difference in how the little blonde girl played with my children. Not only did she participate in their play, but she would tell them how to play, what to do and how the story should proceed. When we bought our first video recorder, the play acting turned to “film-making,” and thus her first movie attempts were made. That little girl was Roksolana Toporowych, affectionately known as “Roxy.”

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NEW YORK – The feature film “Julia Blue” is available for purchase and rent on Amazon Prime Video beginning May 4 in the United States and the United Kingdom.

An award-winning film, “Julia Blue” captures the story of a young woman who comes into her own in war-torn Ukraine, where she finds her path towards independence and a brighter future challenged by unexpected love.

“The film humanizes a world historical event by dwelling not on the movers and shakers of history, but rather on how world events invade and shape the life of one remarkable young woman while bringing awareness to the war in Ukraine,” said film critic Thelma Adams.

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“East Bay Murders,” by Tanya Chalupa. Independently published, 2020. Paperback, 246 pp., ISBN: 9781710996470, $15.99.

In her third book and first work of fiction, Tanya Chalupa once again focuses on the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento County. “Because of the work I did in legislation and running federally funded programs, I know Northern California, almost like the back of my hand, although now I rotate between Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia,” the author notes.

It was while she was working in Albany, Calif., Police Department with Lt. Bill “Elvis” Palmini, that DNA conclusively confirmed Charles Junior Jackson as the killer in the shocking Albany Vila murder case. Ms. Chalupa accompanied Lt. Palmini, who at the time was the investigating officer, to meet with Alameda County Senior Deputy D.A. Rock Harmon, regarding the case. During the course of her writing, Mr. Harmon provided Ms. Chalupa with guidance on the workings of the prosecutor’s office.

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“Trial of Kings” by Nicholas Paslawsky, Castorville, Texas: Black Rose Writing, 2019. Paperback: ISBN: 978-1684332731, 251pp,. $19.95. Kindle: ISBN: 1684332737, $6.99.

This fantasy novel by a young Ukrainian American follows the adventures of a company of teens who traverse the treacherous Old World and resist the nefarious legion while trying to reach the mythical Bright Harbor and discover themselves along the way.

It’s been five years since the ancient world of Primoria held the Trial of Kings. The consequence of the final battle shattered the spirits of the land, ushering in a time of great uncertainty.

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It seems that every Ukrainian creates his or her own image of Taras Shevchenko. Worldwide, nearly 1,100 memorials have portrayed the Ukrainian poet-artist as variously young or old, in folk attire or imperially slim, with furrowed brow or distant gaze. But eccentric? Humorous? Romantic?

Yet this was precisely the way director Aleksandr Denysenko intended to “humanize” the bard of Ukraine in his 2019 film “Taras: The Return,” which was screened at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York on Sunday, February 16. To accommodate viewer interest, an additional showing was added.

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“Strangers in a Strange Church? New Faces of Ukrainian Catholicism in Canada,” by Christopher Guly. Toronto: Novalis, 2019. 96 pp. ISBN 978-2-89688-747-7.

How do others see us? We rarely have an opportunity to find out. It may happen through the indiscretion of a third party. We may be disappointed or simply shocked by what even our closest friends think of us. And yet sometimes, we are pleasantly surprised. We may discover that we possess attractive traits of which we had not been aware.

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“Vichnyi Calendar” (The Eternal Calendar, in Ukrainian), by Vasyl Makhno. Lviv: Staryi Lev, 2019. ISBN-10: 617679725X.

Vasyl Makhno’s first novel, “The Eternal Calendar” (“Vichnyi Calendar”) illuminates different epochs and locations, and merges different genres. On a macro level, it is a family saga; on a micro level, it contains a number of stories within the stories and dramatized narratives. Spanning from the 1700s to our time, the Ukrainian-language novel follows family histories of a few generations, all coming from one area in western Ukraine, or eastern Galicia, with the village of Yazlivets and cities of Buchach and Chortkiv in focus.

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CALGARY, Alberta – The Almanac of Ukrainian Canadian Servicemen is now available online on the website of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation (UCCLF).

This Ukrainian-language document (with an English foreword) provides information about many of the thousands of Ukrainian Canadian men and women who volunteered for service overseas with the Canadian armed forces during World War II, including photographs, casualty lists and other details. Produced in 1946, by the Ukrainian Catholic Brotherhood of Canada, this rare document has been restored, and is now being made available in support of the “Heroes of Their Day” project.

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“Russian Church in Hybrid War against Ukraine,”
by Tetyana Derkatch. Kyiv: Cerkvarium, 2019. 232 pp.

It is generally accepted that the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is closely tied to the Russian government and, in exchange for its support, fulfills a range of tasks for its benefit. What is less widely known is that many of this Church’s hierarchs, clergy and faithful in Ukraine work in the interests of Russia and thus threaten the integrity of the Ukrainian state. That, at any rate, is the thesis of Tetyana Derkach’s new book.

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“Sweet Darusya: A Tale of Two Villages,” by Maria Matios; Michael Naydan and Olha Tytarenko (translators). New York: Spuyten Duyvil, 2019. 224 pp. ISBN: 9781947980938. $16.
A new and dynamic translation of prominent Ukrainian writer Maria Matios’s novel “Sweet Darusya” has been released by Spuyten Duyvil of New York. The work – described by writer Andrei Kurkov as “the best contemporary Ukrainian novel written since Ukrainian Independence in 1991” – has been translated by Michael Naydan and Olha Tytarenko.

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“Seven Signs of the Lion,” by Michael M. Naydan. London: Glagoslav Publications, 2016. 344 pp. ISBN: 978-1-911414-17-9 (paperback), $27.
The novel “Seven Signs of the Lion” is a magical journey to the city of Lviv. A mix of magical realism, travelogue, adventure novel and love story, it is a fragmented work about a mysterious and mythical place.
On his journey to self-realization, the hero of the novel, Nicholas Bilanchuk, encounters many unique and enigmatic characters who help him on his quest to find the seven signs of the lion in the multicultural and medieval “city of lions,” Lviv.

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