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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Library Arrow

Man with a Movie Camera (DVD)

Man with a Movie Camera is one of the major manifestos of the world cinema avant-garde. According to aesthetic principles of Vertov, the film was not based on a script. In Man with a Movie Camera, Vertov implemented experiments which he carried out for many years and theoretical developments in cinematography and editing, turning the film into a film-making methodological guide for subsequent generations of directors. The camera of a talented cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman captures motley life of Ukrainian megalopolises – Odesa, Kharkiv, and Kyiv – under New Economic Policy.

Shooting Man with a Movie Camera requiredgreater effort than earlier “cine eye” work. It can be seen in the greaternumber of locations that were under observation, and the complexities oforganization and technical operation during the shooting. Cutting the film was exceptionallystressful. Modifications in the editingwere going on constantly.

This complex experiment […] rescues us from the paternalism of theatrical literatureand sets us face to face with 100% cinematography and secondly, it contrasts sharply “life as itis” from the point of view of an eye equipped with a camera, the “cine eye”,and “life as it is” from the point of view of the less-than-ideal human eye. Dziga Vertov

The new soundtrack for the movie was created by Dj Derblaster (Ivan Moskalenko) – a famous Ukrainian DJ, musician, music producer, pioneer of Ukrainian club music and rave movement, a legend of national underground culture.

This release also includes the 1999 soundtrack of British electronic band In The Nursery, which works in musical styles of Industrial and Neoclassical Dark Wave.

Cost: 75 грн

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