13.03.2026 : Simone Veil Talk – Larysa larovenko

When war tears families apart, a mother’s voice becomes a lifeline.

Please join us for a film screening of Mama’s Voice (2025) followed by a Q&A session with producers Larysa Iarovenko and Dmytro Konovalov.

In the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the film director Ganna and her family escape and find refuge in Poland. There, they meet Kaja and her family. The deep bond the two mothers develop helps Ganna to confront trauma, loss, and the horrors of war.

Filmed in Mława, Poland, and Zabuchchia, Ukraine, Mama’s Voice is an intimate portrait of a Ukrainian family torn apart during the early months of the Russian invasion. Told through the lens of a refugee, the film captures the daily realities faced by Ukrainian women and children seeking safety in Poland. It is a heartfelt story of women’s friendship forged in the backdrop of war — a powerful narrative of resilience, displacement, and the transformative power of art in times of crisis.

Bringing a deeply personal female perspective to the Russo-Ukrainian war, the film amplifies the voices of displaced Ukrainian women and children, reminding us that even in the darkest times, love and kindness continue to speak.

Date: Friday, March 13, 2026

Time: 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM

Location: McGill Arts Building | Room W-120 (McGill University)  

FREE admission  

The event is open to McGill students and faculty and JMCM affiliates.  

Duration: 86 minutes  

Language: Documentary with English subtitles  

Documentary Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheYarovenkoSisters

Documentary Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/mamasvoicefilm/  

Larysa Iarovenko is the producer of the documentary Mama’s Voice. She studied journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and later earned a Master’s degree from the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto, where she worked for nearly a decade as the Petro Jacyk and Ukrainian Programs Coordinator.

Her career began in Ukraine, where she worked as a TV anchor and journalist as well as a scriptwriter of several documentary films, including Chornobyl: Facts and Documents (1992), To Kuban for Happiness (1993), and Kobzari (1993), produced by Ukrkinokhronika.

From 2016 to 2018, Larysa served as a Project Manager at the Ukrainian Institute in London and co-produced Ukraine Calling, a weekly English-language radio program on Hromadske Radio. After returning to Canada in 2018, she resumed her work at the University of Toronto, and Mama’s Voice is her first film as a producer.

Dmytro Konovalov is the producer of Mama’s Voice. He graduated from the Institute of Journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and holds an MA from Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

Dmytro is a Canadian educator, financial journalist, and investor. His professional experience includes work in project finance at Northland Power, a Canadian renewable energy developer, and in equity research and analysis at HSBC Global Markets and UniCredit Securities. This is also his first time producing a film.