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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Made by CASE digital studio
Exhibition Arrow

THE ARRIVAL OF SOUND

Прихід звуку

Installation by the composer Alla Zahaikevych and the artist Heorhii Potopalskyi based on the film Kira Kiralina (1927)

A silent film is a myth, films were always demonstrated with musical or actor’s accompaniment. The contemporary Ukrainian composer Alla Zahaikevych reconsidered the transformations gone through by a soundtrack of the 1920s.

Moving through the exhibition space you will hear how film music changed – from film scoring to original composing, from random improvisation to a sophisticated orchestra, and, eventually, to live recording.

The final point of this audio journey will be a multimedia installation by Alla Zahaikevych and the sound artist Heorhii Potopalskyi based on Yulii Meitus’ surviving music to one of the most famous VUFKU films, Kira Kiralina (1927) by Boris Glagolin. The authors of this film “art reconstruction” worked not only with the sound, but also with film posters and the French text of the Romanian writer’s Panait Istrati’s novel, which was the basis of the film.