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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Man from the Forest

Man from the Forest

Forest Man / Revenge for the Past / Hunter Poloz

1928, First Film Studio VUFKU (Odesa), 7 parts / 1,700 m

Director:
 Heorhii Stabovyi
Scriptwriter: 
Kostiantyn Koshevskyi (Volodymyr Ovcharenko-Valdo) 
Cameraman:
 Danylo Demutskyi
Artist: 
Serhii Khudiakov, Heinrich Beisenherz
Cast:
 Stepan Shahaida (Hrai, an engineer), Petro Masokha (Varavva, his assistant – début), M. Heraskevych (Hrai’s wife), Yurii Chernyshov (Ivasyk, her son), Kapka (a nanny), Serhii Karpenko (Poloz, a man from the forest), A[rsenii?] Kuts (a telephone operator, a militia man), H. Kalmykov (an intern), M. Ivanov (a gloomy worker), P. Ilin (a rural man), Zdulskyi (a butcher), Bachynska (a stallkeeper), A. Andarini (a lady), Mili Taut-Korso, Mykola Nademskyi (a worker)

The first years of industrialisation. Disguised as a hunter, an ex-White officer Poloz, who is connected to the international intelligence, is hiding in the forest where the construction of a new power station has begun. An intern making photos of the buildings suddenly notices Poloz.

Frightened to be exposed, Poloz kills the guy and makes a cut in the base of the scaffolding of the main building of the power station. In face of a failure, counting on his ex-wife Katia’s help, Poloz kidnaps a 10-year-old boy. Hrai, an engineer and the father of the kidnapped boy, finds Poloz’s hiding place in the forest, and his assistant Varrava shoots the White officer at that very moment when he tries to explode the main building of the power station.

The film is lost.

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