was a sell-out and played to a boisterous and highly-appreciative crowd. Not that mail-order brides and dating online aren’t fun
topics, but I did kind of feel out of the loop. Director Julia Ivanova and
producer Boris Ivanov were at the screening to tell us that, while they weren’t
sure if we’d like their film or not, they could guarantee that we’d be
entertained.
follows an all-inclusive dating expedition to the
Ukraine. The men involved are mostly American but there are a few from Europe
and one unfortunate individual from BC. Most are in their forties or fifties,
and most are divorced, some with kids. The company organizing their
dating tour runs a massive website with tens of thousands of women registered online;
they are either in their late teens or early twenties.
There is a lot to the topic of online dating and sexual tourism but the filmmakers don’t really tackle these questions. This is a light piece, meant to be funny, to be a cautionary tale and to
let us know that the motives of both the men and women
might be suspect. The men are
looking for women untainted by Western feminism, but also for tall, leggy young
blondes. The women claim that Ukrainian men don’t appreciate them and drink too
much. Few relationships result, but the women do get free dinners. This is a gentle film (though incredibly
uncomfortable to watch at times) and while it raises interesting questions, it could have run a lot further with the subject matter.
SCREENINGS:
