Traditionally, Bukovynians will honor the memory of their prominent countryman Ivan Mykolaichuk this June. He would have turned 74 on June 15...
Kitsman raion will hold ethnic culture festival “At Ivan’s Table” once again. This year’s program will feature amateur and folk singing, dancing, sales of works by masters of arts and crafts as well as traditional costumes and embroidery works, while the Music Trio from the village of Hlynytsia will play tunes from Mykolaichuk’s films. Throughout Chernivtsi region, people will hold memorial evenings and exhibitions while the Mykolaichuks’ Museum Farmstead in Chortoryia will host a solemn ceremony.
This year’s festival is a special event, being held on the eve of the filmmaker’s anniversary. Municipal and regional officials pledged four years ago to resolve the issue of the Mykolaichuk Cinema in Chernivtsi. While running for the mayor of Chernivtsi, Oleksii Kaspruk promised that his first step in office would be to revive culture, including through reconstruction of the movie theater. The Day wrote a lot on the cinema’s troubled fate, but unfortunately, little has changed over the years, and officials still remember about the theater only on Mykolaichuk’s birthday. Nothing has been done beyond making public statements about the creation of the Mykolaichuk Filmmaking Center and presenting redevelopment projects by young architects, which they made for the “White Bird’s Nest” competition... By the way, the fate of models and student projects is currently unknown as well. Will any of them ever be built? The theater’s building has been transferred to the Kalynivsky Market municipal enterprise, and the new owner has just glazed broken windows. No redevelopment has been started! The situation around the Mykolaichuk Cinema in Kitsman is no better. The raion council has called for bids by prospective tenants of the property. The cutoff date for applications is June 8. In the meantime, the question arises: will the White Bird’s Nest appear in Chernivtsi in the near future? We mean a center which would popularize the works of Mykolaichuk and create a new art space for the city...
