Man with a Movie Camera

Man with a Movie Camera 1929

7.84

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

1929

Earth

Earth 1930

6.70

Vasyl, a member of the Komsomol, with the help of a local party organization, gets a tractor and plows private boundaries "on kulak fields". However, this enthusiasm will cost him dearly.

1930

Arsenal

Arsenal 1929

6.73

A soldier returns to Kyiv after surviving a train crash and encounters clashes between nationalists and collectivists.

1929

P.K.P.

P.K.P. 1926

5.60

The defeated remnants of vile Ukrainian nationalists, headed by the leader of the Ukrainian liberation movement, Symon Petliura, cannot accept their historical fate and are plotting an insurrection against the Soviet regime in Ukraine. There is nothing Petliura and his cohorts would not do to win back control over Ukraine, including selling it to the highest bidder, in this case, the Polish dictator Jozef Pilsudski. A group of plotters are coordinating an insurrection in Kyiv with an attack from Poland headed by Petliura’s general Yurko Tiutiunnyk. Predictably, the invincible Red Army defeats the nationalist plotters and proves that the Soviet borders are impregnable.

1926

Love's Berries

Love's Berries 1926

4.44

Jean, the hairdresser, is flabbergasted: what is that baby his girlfriend Lisa has put in his arms out of the blue? The fruit of love? Out of the question. From that moment on, the reluctant father has but one thought in his head: he must get rid of the cumbersome 'article'. And, take his word for it, all the ways are good.

1926

Downpour

Downpour 1929

1

The lost film about the peasant rebellion of the 18th century in Ukraine, led by Maksym Zalizniak and Ivan Honta. The history of the haydamak movement became a trigger for authors to have experiments in the field of film language: shooting against the background of black velvet, focus on the static character of the picture, the sculptural nature of composition mise-en-scène solutions, replacement of dramatic collisions with cinema engravings depicting the historical past.

1929

Benya Krik

Benya Krik 1926

5.20

The seamy Jewish underworld of Odesa is the setting for Isaac Babel's story based on the life of gangster king Mishka Yaponchik "Mike the Jap" Vinnitsky. Murder is a way of life for Benya and his gang until he finds himself ensnared in a Bolshevik trap.

1926

Vendetta

Vendetta 1925

1

Neighbors, priest Sylvestr Izhekheruvymskyi and deacon Hordii Sviatoptitsyn, had a bloody feud with each other over a cherry tree that grew on the border between them and one day unexpectedly bore abundant large juicy berries.

1925

The Famine and The Fight Against It

The Famine and The Fight Against It 1922

1

A documentary fiction propaganda film about the famine in Ukraine in 1921-1922. Among the causes of the catastrophe, in addition to drought, the film mentions the consequences of revolutionary events. It shows swollen children, destroyed factories and plants, burning villages, dead cattle, and a number of actions aimed at helping the victims: the work of the Commission for the Relief of the Starving under the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee, the organization of feeding stations, workers donating their three-day salary to help the famine victims, etc. The very first film made in Odesa under the auspices of the newly founded VUFKU in nationalized pavilions that until recently belonged to film magnates Kharytonov and Borysov. Mykhailo Kapchynskyi, director of the First Film Factory of the VUFCU, recalled: "We were able to print only three copies from the negative. Tens of thousands of people watched the film in the cinemas of the regional administration."

1922

Hamburg

Hamburg 1926

1

Germany, 1923. Workers, called to the struggle by the communist Niels Unger, seize the arsenal and turn every building into a fortress. The social democrat Buk does not fulfill Unger's order to blow up the bridge over the Elbe, so the Reichswehr troops enter the city. A bloody massacre begins. Nils Unger is arrested. Buk, who is associated with the punitive leader Meins, betrays the rebels during interrogations. A trial is scheduled for the rebels. To avoid political publicity during the trial, Nils Unger is declared insane, but manages to escape from the prison hospital. Once again, his call resounds through the streets of Hamburg: "Save your guns!"

1926

Alim

Alim 1926

1

Crimea. The middle of the 19th century. A proud and brave jigit Alim Aidamak who cannot put up with the workers’ abuse, works at the leather factory of the greedy Ali-bay. One day he responds in kind. He is fired, but he takes the memories of the beautiful daughter of his ex-master, Sara, with him. Young people went their separate ways. Alim takes the revolutionary path; he and his friends go to the mountains and start an underground struggle. Only his name is enough to terrify landlords, Mirzas and civil servants. Authorities send a Cossack detachment to catch the Crimean Tatar Robin Hood. The adventure film, which reminds an American western, was filmed based on a Crimean Tatar legend, which in 1925 was turned into a play by the repressed Crimean Tatar writer Ipchi Ümer. The shooting of the film under the script of the Ukrainian avant-garde poet Mykola Bazhan began in the autumn of 1925, when the indigenisation policy in the national republics caused demand on the national plots.

1926

Wind Across the Rapids

Wind Across the Rapids 1930

1

Construction of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station began in 1927. The subsequent flooding of the Dnipro rapids forever changes the ancient way of life of farmers from coastal villages. However, the old maritime pilot Ostap Kovban is in no hurry to accept progress. Only his own son Andriy stands in his way.

1930

Mud

Mud 1927

1

Based on the novel of the same name by N.Mizgir about the collapse of a noble family.

1927

His Career

His Career 1928

1

Based on the novel “The Three of Us“ by Oles Dovitnyi. Student Viktor Borovskyi becomes a member of an illegal student revolutionary organization, which soon becomes of interest to the police. Once in jail, Viktor cannot stand the interrogations, gives out the addresses of the organization's members and becomes an informant. He informs the police about the upcoming assassination of one of the tsarist generals. During the assassination attempt, the police arrest a girl terrorist, but the general is killed by the bullet of another revolutionary. 

1928

Zvenyhora

Zvenyhora 1928

6.25

The momentous film stars Mykola Nademskyi as the grandfather of Tymish, whom he alerts to the secret treasure buried in the mountains of Zvenygora – a treasure that rightfully belongs to his homeland. The film wonderfully blends both lyricism and politics and uses its central construct to build a montage praising Ukrainian industrialization, attacking the bourgeoisie, celebrating the beauty of the Ukrainian steppe and retelling ancient folklore. Sergei Eisenstein said of the film, "As the lights went on, we felt that we had just witnessed a memorable event in the development of the cinema".

1928

The Three

The Three 1928

1

Based on a short story by O. Henry "The Ransom of the Red Chief". Three boys meet by chance. Myshko, a pioneer, is walking down the street in the ranks of a pioneer unit, while the homeless Semen is standing behind the unit, and Mr. Zhorzhyk is looking out of the window. The second time the boys meet is in the Crimea, where Myshko travels with the pioneers, the panych in a soft carriage with a bonnet, and Semen between the cars. Semen is kidnapped by bandits who mistake him for Zhorzhyk. Meanwhile, Zhorzhyk escapes from his bondage to a pioneer detachment. Soon, Semyon ends up there as well.

1928

Oktyabryuhov and Dekabryuhov

Oktyabryuhov and Dekabryuhov 1928

1

The bourgeois wedding of Dekabryukhova is interrupted by the machine-gun fire of revolution. He flees abroad, leaving his wife. Oktyabryukhov stays and adapts to the new life. At the end of the picture there is an attempt at universal reconciliation and the poet's tormenting theme "three-way love". Dekabryuhov returns to his homeland. His wife is already married to Oktyabryukhov. Having learned about it, Dekabryukhov tries to leave, but the newlyweds force him to stay.

1928

Kira Kiralina

Kira Kiralina 1928

1

To pay off their debts, parents sell their daughter Kira to an old coach maker, a wealthy man Stavro, before her birth. When Kira is 13 years old, Stavro takes her to his home as a slave wife.

1928

The Night Coachman

The Night Coachman 1929

5.80

Set in Odesa at the end of the Civil War when the town is occupied by the Whites. The night coachman, fifty-year-old Hordiy Yaroshchuk, lives with his daughter Katya who gets involved with a Bolshevik and revolutionary.

1929

They Don’t Give Any Chance to Go

They Don’t Give Any Chance to Go 1930

1

The action takes place in the late 1920s in Ukraine. The exposure of a counter-revolutionary agent who has infiltrated the Soviet scientific community. The film has survived without the 6th part.

1930