Bone and Thread: The Clandestine Survival of Paraskevia Michniak focuses on Ukrainian artist Ola Rondiak as she weaves the history of 4 generations of maternal history into her art. The film opens with the story of her maternal grandmother, Paraskevia Michniak who was sentenced to 25 years of hard labor at the Women’s Strict Regime Prison in Mordovia, Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine during World War II.
While imprisoned, Michniak, at great personal risk, began embroidering religious icons at night by the light of the northern latitudes. She used cloth and threads from her clothes and fish bones for needles. When she was finally released, she found herself all alone. Her family had all left for America. Unable to join them due to the Iron Curtain, she returned to Kolomiya, Ukraine after which a written (albeit censored) trans-Atlantic correspondence began with her husband and daughter. In the late sixties, an American tourist successfully smuggled the embroideries to her family in the West. Michniak passed away in 1975.
Rondiak said that her grandmother's stories are in her DNA. While her grandmother passed decades ago, the power of her art remains and is a daily inspiration to her—and now it informs Michniak's great granddaughters. With Michniak's stories Rondiak now teaches her daughters and their friends how to cope with the ongoing war. Michniak's silent hand has also taught these young women how to look within themselves to find the strengths they didn't know they had.
By focusing the on the contributions of 4 generations of Ukrainian women, Bone and Thread will illustrate how their efforts have inspired the present generation to protect democracy. As democracies throughout the world struggle to survive, the efforts of Rondiak and the front-line workers she will portray, serve as clarion call for us all to protect the fragile rights that are under threat.
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