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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Trypillian Tragedy

Trypillian Tragedy

1926, Second Film Studio VUFKU (Yalta), 6 parts / 1,800 m

Director:
 Oleksandr Anoshchenko
Scriptwriter:
 Hryhorii Epik
Cameraman:
Volodymyr Lemke
Artist:
Robert Scharfenberg
Cast:
 V. Shakhovskyi (a priest in the village of Trypillia), Heorhii Astafiev (Danylo Terpylo, a seminary student, he is also otaman Zelenyi – début), Yevheniia Petrova (Katia, a teacher), D. Borysov (Petro, a Komsomol member, organiser of the fight against crime), Yevhen Tymofieiev (Ratmanskyi, a Komsomol member), Fastovskyi (a Komsomol member), A. (O?) S/tu/adetskyi (a Komsomol member without a finger), Varvara Kryvoruchko (a Komsomol member), B. Pelenis (Jewish girl Sonia), A. (O?) Tymontaiev, D. Medvedskyi (an officer of the White Army)

The story of a tragic death of a Komsomol detachment in a fight with the Greens during the Civil War.

1919. The Komsomol member Petro comes to Trypillia from Kyiv to visit his family. He falls in love with the local teacher Katia. 

But Katia likes another guy, a new “Bohdan Khmelnytsky,” Danylo Terpylo who gets people to fight against the Soviets.  

Katia joins his detachment. When, by the decision of the Committee of Poor Peasants, Trypillia peasants take away the bread hidden by the rich villagers, Terpylo’s detachment fiercely cracks down on them. To wipe out Terpylo’s detachment, Komsomol members from Kyiv form a youth Red Army regiment. Almost all members of the regiment are captured by the Greens. Some of them are hanged, others are shot, and the rest are thrown alive to the Dnieper river from a cliff. Among the Komsomol members doomed to execution Katia sees Petro. All of her attempts to save him are vain. Petro dies. Finally realising the tragedy of her mistake, Katia kills otaman Terpylo. Yet, she also dies…

Most roles in the films were played by students of Odesa Cinema Technical College and the Cinema Faculty of Kyiv Institute of Arts.

The film is stored at the Russian Gosfilmofond.

Трипільська трагедія. Кіно №4, 1926