Great Terror in Ukraine portrayed in new film documentary (05/24/98)

Great Terror in Ukraine portrayed in new film documentary

NEW YORK - The documentary film "Eternal Memory: Voices From the Great Terror," will be screened at the 1998 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival to be held at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater on June 17, 19 and 23.

"Eternal Memory" is an historical documentary treatment of Stalinist purges and terror in the former USSR during the 1930s and 1940s, when 20 million died in labor camps, of famine, or in widescale executions. Centered on Ukraine, the film incorporates historical footage, interviews with witnesses and survivors, historians, and public officials.

The historians interviewed include Professors Robert Conquest of Stanford and Roman Szporluk of Harvard University. Others interviewed include Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. national security advisor; Leonid Kravchuk, former president of Ukraine, and Mykola Holushko, a former KGB official.

"Eternal Memory" is directed and produced by David Pultz for New York-based Wellspring Films; with Marco Carynnyk, co-producer and researcher and George Yemec, executive producer. The film is narrated by Meryl Streep.

Screenings will be held at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, 165 W. 65th St., (plaza level, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue), on Wednesday, June 17, at 4 p.m.; Friday, June 19, at 2 p.m. and Tuesday, June 23, at 6:15 p.m. A discussion with the filmmaker will follow the screening.

"Eternal Memory" will be shown together with the 1995 film "I Don't Know Where, or When, or How..." directed by Zelemir Guardiol of Yugoslavia.

Admission is $8.50 for the general public; $4.50 for seniors (weekday matinees). Advance tickets may be purchased at the box office beginning June 1. The box office telephone is (212) 875-5600.

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In 1991, Mr. Pultz teamed with Canadian Ukrainians George Yemec and Marco Carynnyk to produce the documentary about the event in the Stalinist period of the former USSR known as "The Great Terror." Work on the project took six years and involved two trips to western Ukraine to interview witnesses, survivors, and public officials. The first trip was in the fall of 1991, just at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the establishment of an independent Ukraine.

Mr. Carynnyk is chiefly known as a writer, editor, translator and researcher. He has written extensively on Eastern European politics and history. His work includes the book, "Alexander Dovzhenko: The Poet as Filmmaker," a collection of diaries for which he served as editor and translator. In addition, he originated the concept for and served as researcher on "Harvest of Despair," an award-winning documentary on the Ukrainian famine of 1932-1933.

Mr. Yemec is president of World Media Brokers, a Toronto company that specializes in direct marketing, consumer market distribution, marketing management and publishing.

The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival was established in 1988 and since 1995, is co-presented annually with the Film Society of Lincoln Center. This year's program, under the direction of Bruni Burres, will present 33 works from 19 countries. Apart from presenting movies with themes of human rights and politics, the festival underscores the fact that such works are no longer as marginalized as they once were but have become integral to world cinema.

The two-week festival runs from June 12-25.