Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Flipping channels last Friday night, I stumbled on a piece of TV news that stunned me exceedingly.

It showed John Malkovich and Kevin Spacey leisurely chatting at a press conference … in Yalta?! No way! And yet there they were. Two of the most outstanding American actors were now in Ukraine, just a train ride away. It was almost as if they were sitting at my kitchen table, drinking tea.

The upcoming Ukrainian film festival Molodist annually promises some big film stars as guests and jury members, but many of those they invite never make it here. There was even once talk of Jack Nicholson coming to visit. But it didn’t happen. This year Molodist officials announced to be expecting directors Wim Wenders and Emir Kusturica and French veteran actor Alain Delon. Well, those might as well come. Film directors tend to come here if there is a good purpose. Roman Polanski came in 2005 to open Molodist with his movie “Oliver Twist” and Stephen Spielberg came to present a documentary on the Holocaust in Ukraine that he co-produced. French actors are also frequent visitors. Gerard Depardieu, probably the most-loved Frenchman in the former Soviet Union, already went skiing in the Carpathians with President Victor Yushchenko and appeared in a TV commercial for KyivStar, singing a lullaby in Ukrainian.

Some stars come undercover. For example, Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia secretly shot a music video in the streets of Kyiv. Even if you've never heard of it, it’s easy to recognize some familiar sites shown in the video. American teen comedy star Ashton Kutcher recently slipped in and out of Ukraine unnoticed. His goal was to visit sacred places of his religion Cabbala, and he didn’t actually hide – no one seemed to recognize him. Elijah Wood also passed through the city somewhere while filming “Everything Is Illuminated” (2005). Though the story took place in Ukraine, the film for the most part was shot in the Czech Republic. Only a few scenes were filmed in Odessa and Lviv.

Kevin Spacey and John Malkovich came quite openly as special guests at the opening of the restored Chekhov Theater, where the iconic playwright himself watched his own plays onstage 100 years ago. Their visit was organized by Russian billionaire and patron of the arts Aleksandr Lebedev, who financed the restoration of the theater. He claimed that the actors weren’t paid to come; they came because they were interested.

Moreover, Spacey, Malkovich and Lebedev shared a vision to create a center of theater culture in Yalta, so that the best directors and actors of the world could come and stage Chekhov plays at the theater. Sounds really ambitious and too good to be true. Imagine what it would do Yalta’s tourist industry! Still, the fact that two great actors are interested in developing something in Ukraine cannot but fill me with hope. Perhaps first an international theater and then a real moviemaking industry will come to Ukraine?