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

Arsenal

Arsenal 1929

6.80

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

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

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm 1930

6.30

A lyrical documentary on the lives of Coal miners in the Donbass who are struggling to meet their production quotas under the Five Year Plan.

1930

Two Days

Two Days 1927

5.00

The story concentrates on a single 48-hour period during the Russian Revolution. The central character, played by Y. E. Samchykovski, is an old servant who staunchly supports the Royal Family. Even when his master is placed in prison and his son is appointed a commissar, the servant remains faithful to the Czarist regime. But when his village is invaded by the White Russian army and his son is summarily executed, the old man realizes that his homeland is far better off in the hands of the revolutionaries, who seek to build rather than destroy. A "cleansing" fire brings this propaganda piece to an appropriately symbolic conclusion.

1927

Love's Berries

Love's Berries 1926

4.90

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

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

The Diplomatic Pouch

The Diplomatic Pouch 1927

4.20

The film's plot is based on the real murder of the Soviet diplomatic courier Theodor Nette abroad. The pouch of the Soviet diplomat, which is stolen by British spies, is taken away by the sailors of a ship sailing to Leningrad who deliver it to the authorities. The intelligence agents make every effort to retrieve the bag.

1927

Zvenygora

Zvenygora 1928

6.40

The momentous film stars Mykola Nademskyi as the grandfather of Tymish (Semen Svashenko), whom he alerts to secret treasure buried in the mountains of Zvenygora – 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. Said Sergei Eisenstein 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 Eleventh Year

The Eleventh Year 1928

6.20

The film is dedicated to the achievements of the Ukrainian SSR for the eleventh anniversary of the October Revolution.

1928

Bennie the Howl

Bennie the Howl 1926

5.80

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

A Spectre Haunts Europe

A Spectre Haunts Europe 1923

6.00

Set in an imaginary land where the threat of revolution spurs the Emperor to seek exile in one of the most distant parts of his realm. There he meets Elka, the daughter of a revolutionary who has been banished here due to his confrontational activities. The two fall in love but meet a violent end when the revolutionaries, led by Elka's father, destroy the palace.

1923

Mykola Dzheria

Mykola Dzheria 1927

1

Freedom-loving Mykola Dzheria goes away from the village because of poverty and villainage. He leaves his senior parents, his young wife Nemydora and escapes to the sugar-mill. His friend dies because of slave work. Mykola goes to the Dniester reed beds. Working with other escapees, Mykola falls in love with the daughter of the cooperative leader. The girl also likes the handsome guy. However, their fate is decided by the landlord’s servants; they set the reed beds on fire, shackle Mykola and take him to Verbivka. The film was released on 01 April 1927 in Kyiv and on 24 May 1928 in Moscow. The film is lost.

1927

Arrest Warrant

Arrest Warrant 1927

1

The Whites enter the city, and they come over to Nadiia for search and seizure. They do not find the package, but they arrest Nadiia. A White counterintelligence officer interrogates her at the house-headquarters for a long time. However, Nadiia is silent and keeps the location of the package in secret, even though they blackmail her and threat her son, her husband and even her common sense.

1927

Taras Shevchenko

Taras Shevchenko 1926

1

The film adaptation of Taras Shevchenko’s biography of 1925 is the first Ukrainian biopic. At that time, it was one of the most expensive films, as for the first time experts in history, ethnography, and literary studies were involved in pre-production. The famous Modernism artist, academician Vasyl Kryvhevskyi designed the film, and professor Serhii Yefremov served as a consultant.  Consisting of numerous short stories, the film that shows the life of Shevchenko as an adolescent, a soldier, a poet, was successfully demonstrated in Ukraine and abroad and became the most acknowledged cinema project of 1926. Amvrosii Buchma played Taras Shevchenko.

1926

The Little Shoes

The Little Shoes 1928

1

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.

1928

Locksmith and Chancellor

Locksmith and Chancellor 1924

1

The Government of the fictional country Norland has unleashed a war with the neighboring Galikania and is suffering one defeat after another. A group of conspirators who were dissatisfied with this state of affairs, led by the Social Democrat Frank Frey arrange a coup to overthrew the emperor of Norland. But the working class does not like the new order either. Workers expose Frank Frey's policy of continuing the war and a revolution breaks out in the country. The leader of the socialist revolution becomes a mechanic of the name Franz Stark.

1924

The Night Coachman

The Night Coachman 1929

6.50

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

Behind the Monastery Wall

Behind the Monastery Wall 1928

1

The old nunnery owns the best lands. Nuns rent out the land to local rich men, and exploiting peasants they have a wealthy life. The peasants live in misery. Especially, the family of the peasant named Levin. He is forced to give away his last horse, his son Andrii is imprisoned, his daughter Nastia becomes a maid of a rich landlord. Trying to prevent the master’s harassment, Nastia escapes and gets to the nunnery. She can see the other life of the nuns who manufacture false relics, drink alcohol and kill children. Nastia ends up in the basement for resisting one of the “spiritual pastors.” Meanwhile, her brother Andrii escapes from prison. He stirs up a rebellion and saves his sister. The film is lost.

1928

Perekop

Perekop 1930

5.50

This revolutionary epic likens the push for industrialization of Soviet Ukraine with the battle for Perekop during the Civil War. A missing plow blade is presented as a symbol of the country's backward peasant economy that needs to be transformed in the course of the industrial construction. In an onslaught of rapidly changing images, Ukrainian village with its peasants suspicious of everything new, dramatically collides with the frenzy of working factories, plants, and mines.

1930