Diaspora and Art Film Festival, Exhibition and Literary program

Russian-American Cultural Center (RACC) est. in 1998 to provide permanent cultural representation to underrepresented and underfunded multiethnic immigrant community of about 650000 people from the former Soviet republics in New York City. Organizing a large number of high-quality events in the fields of visual arts, literature, publishing, cinema, festivals and discussions, RACC pays special attention to the development of contemporary culture and the preservation of cultural heritage.
Through the main RACC programs: exhibitions (1999- ), literary series (2000- ), film (2002- ) and film festivals (2010- ), the RACC continually seeks innovative approaches to identify and contextualize the current needs of our community, while also focusing on cross-cultural connections with a diversity of artistic practices at the intersection of socio-political and cultural issues. The significance of all our projects lies in the fact that our programs are created by immigrants and appeal to the common experience of our community, its cultural needs through the prism of historical and cultural heritage, the study and interpretation of our history and modernity, and its reflection in culture.
The RACC founding director, an art historian, and our visiting specialists and experts for specific projects are uniquely qualified to work on this interdisciplinary program. Thanks to 26 years’ experience working with the Russian-speaking community, RACC very accurately captures the shifting cultural interests and needs of the community, in connection with changes in artistic trends and community demographics.
In FY 2025 we plan to organize one public and three virtual exhibitions, eight literary events and Diaspora and Art Film festivals.
Marina Temkina and Michel Gerard's joint exhibition “Boys Fight” will be held at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University, followed by a presentation and discussion. Its concept emerged when Marina Tëmkina, poet-artist whose interdisciplinary practice is based on her multi-national immigrant experience and her interest in gender and identity, became concerned with the tragedy of the war in Ukraine and the coming elections in this country, and Michel Gérard made drawings using images from the French dictionary Larousse, when he was a child and lived in occupied Paris during the WWII. The experience of looking at the dictionary pages of male sportive games empowered him and provided hope. Michel Gérard’s early works were informed by surrealist idioms and the energy of 1968. He experimented internationally with de-monumentalization of public art and he had more than fifty solo exhibitions.
Eight bilingual literary events will be hosted by the Yorkville Library presenting New York-based immigrant poets.
Diaspora and Art Film Festivals - feature films that can only be seen here - that respond to specific community interests or the changing theme and context of a particular festival will be presented at several events. Equally unknown and thought-provoking for all generations, the Legacy Program's unique stories are suitable for the whole family as we see our mission as a form of education designed to engage teens and young adults in the study of history and culture, including English-speaking audiences of all ages, too.
The Legacy segment will focus on films about the artistic contributions of prominent descendants of Eastern European immigrants to American culture, such as “The Silence of Mark Rothko”, a documentary about one of the most important artists associated with the American Expressionism movement, who introduced the American avant-garde to the world, and “Vishniak,” a photographer and scientist who pioneered the new field of photomicroscopy. He immigrated to the United States at the beginning of WWII with a unique collection of photographs depicting Eastern European Jewry on the verge of extinction.
Our festivals regularly tell stories about the Holocaust, which are made even more relevant by the rise of anti-Semitism, which is a serious problem for our immigrant communities fleeing anti-Semitism in their home countries. We continue to present the series “The Unknown Holocaust” by Boris Maftsir, the latest of which was dedicated to Vilna in Lithuania, a city called the Jerusalem of the East, of whose population of 80,000 only a few hundred survived. The Soviet Union suppressed the memory of Holocaust, as well as the heroic role of Jews in World War II. So our goal is to tell young people not only about the victims but also the struggle for freedom.
The feature documentary "Four Winters" tells the story of the resistance and courage of Jewish partisans in Ukraine, many of whom were teenagers and women. Film director Julia Mints will take part in the Q&A. To this significant event we will add the educational dramatic series “Memory Forest” by Roman Shumunov, an immigrant from Georgia, whose films we started to show during his school years.
The goals and objectives to achieve results are determined by the RACC mission, the main ones of which are the development of cultural life, which is the most important factor in the self-identification of our community members and talent development of immigrant artists. Through our professional selection, we take risks and provide a platform for first-time performance in all fields for those starting their careers. It is no coincidence that our exhibition program, launched 25 years ago, is called “Artist Career Development”.
More than 50 solo and group exhibitions, hundreds of readings and film screenings gave many a start in creative life, also stimulated enthusiasm and interest of the public. The number of participants and visitors is part of the measurement, which, along with an assessment of the quality of the event shows the overall result.
Our annual audience coming from underrepresented and underfunded communities of immigrants from the republics of former Soviet Union many of whom have no representation or access to cultural activities except of our center. The majority of our events are bilingual, including literary readings and films with subtitles that are often done specifically for our program. The languages spoken by our audience include English, Russian, Ukrainian, Yiddish, Polish, Belarusian, Georgian, Armenian and Roma.
Since its inception, RACC has been thoughtful, quality-driven, inclusive and deeply contextualized, connected to the community we serve, yet inclusive, promoting accessibility, collaboration, and cultural diversity among all cultural communities of New York with whom we have much in common both in our history and in our shared future.
Our diverse constituency, tentatively referred to as Russian-speaking, is also marginalized, historically underrepresented and underserved. We are the generation of immigrants, multi-ethnic and multi-faith, including LGBTQIA, veterans, disabled, low-income seniors and population living below the poverty line.
Emphasizing the experience of immigrants in our programming is especially important for our community, since our people have been victims in the long term as a result of oppression and historical upheavals. Russia was called a prison of nations or prison of people - this goes back to serfdom, ethnic pogroms, revolutions, civil and two world wars, the Holocaust, Stalinist political repressions, anti-Semitism and authoritarianism in leading to mass emigration.
However, emigration seems to be perpetual, since after the collapse of the USSR, Russia again did not become a democratic state. Emigration from Russia and former Soviet republics continues due to ongoing human rights violations against the political opposition, LGBTQIA, disregard for the rights of minorities and disabled, and now due to the war against Ukraine.
This is revealed in our programs - Diaspora film festivals, art shows and book presentations about our dramatic past, with clear anti-war and anti-dictatorial concepts that unite our diverse constituency.
It is widely known that previous generations of Russian immigrants, sharing common experiences of disenfranchisement, oppression and displacement, strongly supported the poor, disadvantaged, and ethnic and racial minorities, participating in labor movements and advocating for the civil rights of African Americans. We also work to remove barriers between communities and neighborhoods, primarily by facilitating access to our events by making them free, inclusive, bilingual (most events are in English and films are subtitled), and easily accessible by public transportation ,
In our programs, we try to find a way to collaborate with other underrepresented communities by exploring the relationship between Russian serfdom and American slavery, which were abolished around the same time in 1861 and 1865, and their impact on the arts and culture of both countries .
For a long time, the RACC has assumed a leading role, in providing cultural representation to the Russian-speaking population that is highly diverse and far from homogeneous, collaborating with the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional communities coming from former Soviet republics, including from the Caucasus, Central Asia, up to North-Eastern Yakutia, the Baltic states and Eastern Europe, formerly part of the Russian Empire. This is reflected in the diverse ethnic composition of the RACC board, curatorial and management team, as well as the audience and creative community who benefit from RACC's ongoing cultural representation, providing them with the opportunity to become part of and contribute to the cultural richness of New York City.
Our events are widely covered in the local press, on television, and social network.

Vision Statement. In order to achieve the long-term development goals of our organization, based on our mission and initial aspirations, we understand that, while focusing on planning our current activities, we must do everything possible to achieve our ultimate goal of having a permanent space for our center. This will increase the number of public meetings and attendance, achieve greater publicity, predictability and stability of the planning process, which is essential for the formation of a creative strategy.