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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Two Women

Two Women

Woman in the Mirror / Woman of Our Time

1930, First Film Studio VUFKU (Odesa), 7 parts / 2,580 m

Director:
 Hryhorii Roshal
Scriptwriter:
 Vira Stroieva, Hryhorii Roshal
Cameraman:
 Fedir Veriho-Darovskyi
Artist:
 Volodymyr Miuller
Cast:
 Mykola Kuchynskyi (Artemiev / Artemov, an old party member), Vasiliy Vanin (Borys, his son), K. Kurakina (Lida, Borys’s wife), Oleksandr Smiranin (Yanchevetskyi / Kryzhevetskyi, an engineer, saboteur), Tetiana Tokarska (Lida’s maid), A. (?) Ortobolevskyi (a man of letters), I. Syzov (head of the factory committee), A. Ostashevskyi (an agent), A. (O?) Bielov (a doorkeeper at the casino

The ex-wife of a White officer, the lover of the house manager, who used to be a lackey in their noble family, marries a responsible Soviet worker during the NEP period. She is also a lover of several bourgeois “specialists.” As a result, her husband is expelled from the party.

The commissar’s wife has a different fate. During the civil war, she and her husband are taken captive by the Whites. She helps her husband to start an uprising among the White Cossacks.

During the NEP period, he, a commissar, starts working as a worker at the commodity exchange, and she works there as an inspector. Her husband is allegedly involved in the fraud of the exchange director, which she exposes. But at the trial it becomes evident that her husband is not guilty. And still he is transferred to the country. The wife follows him.

The film is lost.