VUFKU (All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration) existed for less than nine years (1922-1930), but it managed to release over 140 fiction films, several hundreds of non-fiction films and newsreels, dozens of animations, gain fame of “Ukrainian Hollywood,” and take under its control all aspects of the cinematic process – filmmaking, distribution, film press, propaganda, and education. From over 140 full-length fiction films made by VUFKU, about 60 films are considered lost. A lot of the surviving films have come down to us incomplete (without one or more parts).

The website VUFKU. Lost&Found is the first online collection of Dovzhenko-Centre’s media library and is perhaps the only online resource providing comprehensive information on VUFKU.

The mission of the VUFKU. Lost&Found project is to search and return to Ukraine the lost films of the 1920s. Traces of some of the lost films of that time can be found in international archives. Meanwhile, we are collecting archive materials about the lost films, restoring their contents, learning the context of their release.

These searches and analysis, restoration of films and their return to the cultural circulation require financial support. Donating to our fundraising campaign, which will start in October 2019, you will be able to contribute to the restoration of Ukrainian cinema.

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Taras Shevchenko

1926, First Film Studio VUFKU (Odesa), 16 parts / 5,179 m

Director:
 Petro Chardynin
Scriptwriter:
 Mykola Panchenko, Dmytro Buzko
Cameraman: 
Borys Zaveliev
Artist:
 Vasyl Krychevskyi
Cast:
 Amvrosii Buchma (Taras Shevchenko), Vasylko Liudvynskyi (Taras in his childhood), Ivan Khudolieiev (Nicholas I), Mykola Panov (Taras’s father), Matvii Liarov (landlord Engelhardt), Ivan Zamychkovskyi (actor Shchepkin), B. Lisovyi (poet Zhukovsky), Volodymyr Lisovskyi (a general), V. Dobrovolskyi (Alexander II), Oleksandr Malskyi (a deacon), Musii Dzhura (Taras’s grandfather), Yurii Shumskyi (?), Ivan Kapralov, Nataliia Uzhvii (?), A. Ostashevskyi, K. Keleinikov, V. Indlin, A. Liarova, Adaniev, O. Ostashevskyi, A. Liarova

 

The film adaptation of Taras Shevchenko’s biography of 1925 is the first Ukrainian biopic. At that time, it was one of the most expensive films, as for the first time experts in history, ethnography, and literary studies were involved in pre-production. The famous Modernism artist, academician Vasyl Kryvhevskyi designed the film, and professor Serhii Yefremov served as a consultant. 

Consisting of numerous short stories, the film that shows the life of Shevchenko as an adolescent, a soldier, a poet, was successfully demonstrated in Ukraine and abroad and became the most acknowledged cinema project of 1926. Amvrosii Buchma played Taras Shevchenko.

There was also a condensed version of the film named Taras’s Life (Young Taras), which was made by Chardynin in co-authorship with his wife Marharyta Barska-Chardynina and was targeted at the young audience.

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