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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The Little Shoes

The Little Shoes

The Night Before Christmas

1928, First Film Studio VUFKU (Odesa), 6 parts / 1,519 m

Director:
 Petro Chardynin
Scriptwriter:
 Leonid Hurevych
Cameraman:
 Borys Zaveliev
Artist:
 Vasyl Krychevskyi
Cast:
 A. Symonov (the head), A. Kharytonov (Chub), Mykola Nademskyi (his friend, his daughter’s godfather), S. Vasiutynskyi (Tkach), O. Appak (Tkachykha), P. Tsykhomovych (blacksmith Vakula), Anna Horicheva (Solokha), H. Halyna (Oksana, Vakula’s fiancée), Dmytro Kapka (a devil), Volodymyr Lisovskyi (a deacon), Mariia Romani(o)vska (a tavern keeper), S. Ardt (Catherine II), I. Korrado, M. Shevelie(o)va (house serfs), A. Bielov (Patsiuk), Vasko Liudvynskyi (a boy)

The film is based on M. Gogol’s short novel Christmas Eve.

To justify the fantastic adventures of the blacksmith Vakula, the authors of the film “simplify” Gogol’s plot: Vakula, having drunk too much at Patsiuk’s place, falls asleep. And he sees this dream where the devil takes him to the palace of Catherine II in Saint-Petersburg; and there Vakula takes off the little shoes of the Russian empress to give them to his fiancée Oksana. And, really, drunk Vakula takes off the shoes while sleeping… but from Patsiuk. Later, when Vakula unwraps the package with the “royal slippers” in front of Oksana, he finds only Patsiuk’s dirty shoes there.

The film was released on 13 February 1928 in Kyiv and on 27 March 1928 in Moscow.

The film is lost.

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