Kremenchuk youth will view films, devoted to the topic of European identity and tolerance

Film demonstrations on these issues are planned to conduct at the same time in 10 oblasts of Ukraine, on the basis of European Information Centers and other organizations. The initiative was developed by participants of a training “Standards of working with youth in the field of informing about European integration”, which was held by the European Information Center (EIC) in the city of Sumy, under the auspices of Network of European Information Centers of Ukraine and under the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.

During March and February of 2010, youth in different parts of Ukraine will be able to become familiar with European values through cinema.

About 20 young people viewed and discussed a film by a Czech film director Jan Hrebejk “Musíme si pomáhat” (“Divided We Fall”). At the beginning of the meeting, organizers gave a short presentation of the film and its authors and also provided information about current understanding of tolerance and European identity.

After the show the participants discussed their impressions of the film, contemplated about its issues and looked for answers to the following questions:

• What is patriotism and heroism?
• What is collaborationism and treason?
• Does a person always have a choice and what does it depend on?
• How do circumstances make ordinary people heroes or villains?
• What is more difficult: to fight an enemy or live with an enemy?
• Do we have the right to condemn actions of people of war time from the position of today?
• Does a person have the right to expose other people to danger, saving his/her own life?
• Why Jews were the ones who were persecuted during World War II?
• What to do so that one person’s freedom does not limit other people’s freedom?

In the process of discussion, participants provided interesting parallels with the history of Ukraine and their family recollections regarding the period of occupation. Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s books Ukraine on Fire! and Diary were mentioned during the discussion of treason. What did people feel and think about when they were left behind in a village by retreating soldiers of the Red Army? Who was betrayed? What was people’s attitude to girls who returned home from Germany? What expectations did the occupied population have of underground soldiers and guerillas? …

The issues were acute and at times answers and reflections were ambiguous: “…my Granny used to recall that when the place was ‘under Germans’, she was able to eat to satiety for the first time because Soviet authorities confiscated most food reserves of the family…”, “…at night guerillas came to the village… a tank was burned down … fascists shot dead the entire street… For whom did it become better due to this?” Quiet atmosphere of the viewing, the great film and interesting questions for discussion did not leave anyone indifferent, so the meeting lasted for a rather long time and, hopefully, it ‘presented’ quite many topics to all the participants for contemplation.

Since the beginning of 2009, youth that is united by a desire to view and discuss good cinema has had gatherings in the European Club of Kremenchuk Mykhaylo Ostrogradskiy State Polytechnic University. We get together not for the purpose of fostering someone, ‘engraining’ right thoughts or finding the only right solutions. Our goal is to encourage people to express their own opinion and to contemplate about their own identity and own understanding of fairness, heroism, patriotism and a multitude of other problems…

Source: Oleh Ovcharenko, oleh.ovcharenko@gmail.com