Watching: Ivan - Back to the Past

Overview

In 1942, Ivan Boyko was expelled from his native village in the Ternopil region to forced labor in Germany. In 1948, he emigrated to Brazil and never returned, but he remained faithful to his country's cultural traditions through music. The film documents the return of 91-year-old Ivan to his homeland after 68 years of separation, where he visits his relatives and his native village. The visual and sound images that emerge from reading Ivan's diaries relay his own experience of emigrant life, conveying the bitterness of building a new life in a foreign land. Starring Ivan Boyko himself.