Ukraine celebrates the author’s 150th birth anniversary this year. She felt her Ukrainian identity very strongly, despite having ties with Polish and German cultures as well, since her mother was half Pole and half German. Kobylianska did a lot to promote Ukrainian literature in Europe, going beyond her own works to help her colleagues, young authors who were part of her circle of friends. All these subtleties and various aspects of her life, as well as private and even romantic stories about Kobylianska, have become the subject of Viatel Studio’s Valse Brillante, an episode of The Game of Fate series which they are now touring Ukraine with. The Chernivtsi showing, to be held on November 19 at Chernivtsi Fedkovych National University, will become the next step on that journey.
“We never filmed anniversary specials for our series The Game of Fate,” the episode’s executive producer Halyna Kryvorchuk said. “Actually, we have conceived the film about Kobylianska eight years ago, but it took us a very long time to even start working, as we lacked first script, then funds, and later still, that inner inspiration. Finally, when we got everything ready at last in 2012, we found out that the filming would end exactly as the anniversary would roll in. This is a story of the character’s private life, but no portrayal of her private affairs can be created without dealing with Kobylianska’s cultural and political environment, her circle of friends, and Ukrainian identity’s role in this private life. We try to show almost all our pictures where we filmed them, that is, virtually throughout Ukraine. As Kobylianska lived almost her entire adult life in Chernivtsi, we felt it necessary to show the episode at the local university, too.”
Let us recall that Kyivites had an opportunity to see the film in April this year. Valse Brillante will also come to the Khmelnytsky National Academy of State Border Service of Ukraine and Khmelnytsky Humanitarian-Pedagogical Academy. The Ukrainian diaspora will get to see the film, too. According to Kryvorchuk, the Ukrainian TV of Toronto will broadcast excerpts from Valse Brillante during the Kobylianska anniversary celebrations.
