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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Zvenyhora

Zvenyhora

The Enchanted Place

1927, VUFKU (Odesa), 7 parts / 1988 m, 67'

Director:
 Oleksandr Dovzhenko
Scriptwriter:
 Mike Johansen, Yuriy Tyutyunnyk, Oleksandr Dovzhenko
Cameraman:
 Borys Zavelev
Scenery:
 Vasyl Krychevskyi
Cast:
 Mykola Nademskyi (a symbolic old man; the second role – a Tsar General), Semen Svashenko (Tymish, his grandson, a Red Army soldier, then an engineer), Les Podorozhnii (Pavlo, the second grandson, a Petliurite, then an emigrant), M. Charov (Pavlo’s assistant abroad),  Heorhii Astafiev (a Scythian leader), Y. Seliuk (an ataman of the Haydamakas), Leonid Barbe (a Catholic monk), M. Parshyna (Tymish’s wife), O. Symonov (a stout officer on horseback), Dovbysh (a student on the train), Yu.Mykhalov (an adjutant), Polina Skliar-Otava (Oksana, a peasant; the second role – Roksana), Volodymyr Uralskyi (a peasant)

Through centuries, a grey-haired old man guards bloodstained Scythian treasures of Zvenyhora. Before his eyes, as if in a dream, one historical period follows another – from the arrival of the Varangians and the Haidamak movement through to World War I and the October Revolution. A “gold rush” creates fantastic visions in the heads of treasure hunters and possesses the old man’s elder grandson Pavlo.

 (His younger grandson Tymish trades his grandfather’s archaic world of nature to “rabfak” (remedial school for workers) and industrialisation. The brothers meet on the enchanted mountain for a final battle.)

The magic tricks of early silent cinema, the gloomy mysticism of the German expressionist films of the 1920s, Chaplin-like irony, avant-garde montage are all combined by Dovzhenko in his lyric-epic film.

The first film of Dovzhenko’s silent trilogy which sealed his reputation as a leading Ukrainian film director sparked a heated debate about the national cinema.

The film was released on 13.04.1928 in Kyiv, and on 08.05.1928 in Moscow.

 

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