Man with a Movie Camera

Man with a Movie Camera 1929

7.85

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

1929

Zvenygora

Zvenygora 1928

6.26

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

Earth

Earth 1930

6.73

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

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm 1930

6.26

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

Mitya

Mitya 1927

1

Exposing the customs of provincial philistinism in the years of NEP. Small town. Mitya, going to the party of his bride Shurochka, finds a dying woman with infants. When he comes to visit the child, everyone decides that he was the father - and kicks him out. Mitya decides to drown himself. Unknown saves him and helps to stage his own funeral. During the mourning ceremony, Mitya rise from the grave, thanks the inhabitants petrified by horror, and leaves the city forever.

1927

Spartacus

Spartacus 1926

1

The owner of the gladiator school buys two slaves, the Thracian Spartacus and the Gaul Artorix. During the first fight in the arena, Spartacus wins over the Colloseum audience and his freedom. When freed from gladiator slavery, Spartacus calls slaves and Rome plebs for a rebel. The dictator Sulla dies. Spartacus and rebellious slaves lay out a camp near Vesuvius. The Roman commander Crassus is unable to take Spartacus’s camp by storm, so he lays siege to it. Spartacus is betrayed; he dies with his friend Artorix in a battle. The film is based on Raffaello Giovagnoli’s novel of the same name.

1926

Taras Tryasylo

Taras Tryasylo 1927

1

The film is set in the 17th century, when social antagonism is at its peak. The poverty of peasants and poor Cossacks is opposed to the lavish lifestyle of the Ukrainian and Polish noblemen, priests, and Cossack officers. Cossacks fight off Tatars’ attacks, however, they start to realise that the real enemy is much closer. Taras Triasylo raises Cossacks to help the rebellious peasants. A dramatic historical narrative, masterly mass shootings of horse attacks, hand-to-hand combats and public festivities contrast with lounge scenes in the palace – balls, feasts, and entertainment of rich people and their family members wearing brocade clothes. On a grand scale and with an eye for detail, the director draws the texture of the film and its characters. The leading actors of Les Kurbas’s theatre Berezil played film protagonists. The film based on Volodymyr Sosiura’s verse novel of 1925 was considered lost for a long time.

1927

The Self-Seeker

The Self-Seeker 1929

6.00

An opportunistic Kyivan Apollon Shmyguyev, whose peaceful bourgeois life is interrupted by the civil war, decides to wait out the trouble in the South of Ukraine, which is under the rule of the Russian White Army. After gathering left off goods on Andriyivskyi descent in Kyiv, he goes on a journey with a camel, which somehow had strayed to his house. In the midway he is stopped by the Red Army: the camel gets confiscated for the needs of revolution, and Apollon appears in the disposal of the Bolshevik commissar. Zealous and cunning, Apollon quickly takes lead of the local commissariat. But the ingrained thirst for a profit once again puts his life in danger.

1929

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

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

Ostap Bandura

Ostap Bandura 1924

1

Ukrainian Soviet film about the fate of a young Ukrainian peasant who became a participant in the revolutionary struggle.

1924

Tamilla

Tamilla 1927

5.00

Algeria, run by the French administration. Tamilla is a cheerful girl whose father, a respected member of the Méziane community of Kabylians, is looking for a favorable marriage. Mezian promises his daughter to the old merchant Lakhrash. This does not prevent him from selling Tamilla almost immediately for the second time, this time to a young handsome man named Akli, with whom the girl experiences short-term happiness. But later, Akli thinks about another wife. At the same time, Meziane is scheming to lure more money from Akli and pay off Lakhrash. Having already given birth to a child with Akli, Tamilla finally falls into Lakhrash's hands. Everything ends in tragedy, and Tamilla is imprisoned by an unjust sentence of French judges who are insensitive to Berber problems. Although Tamilla will be released, she is already "damaged goods". The film premiered in Turkey 92 years later with a special screening at the 56th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival.

1927

Lord of the Black Rocks

Lord of the Black Rocks 1924

1

The film takes place somewhere abroad. One of the characters in the film, novice Morne, rescues a fisherman girl, Armela, who loses her mind from terror and seriously begins to believe that she is the "goddess of the winds". The monks of the monastery use this not without benefit. Armela's father finds his daughter and takes her home. Morne, in love with the girl, leaves the monastery and returns to his former profession of an artist. Soon Armela recovers and marries Morne.

1924

Right to a Woman

Right to a Woman 1930

1

The heroine of the film leaves her husband, who does not allow her to study, takes her child with her and goes to medical school.

1930

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

Sold Appetite

Sold Appetite 1928

1

After eating too much, the glutton-millionaire realizes that he has ruined his stomach. The hired scientist, Professor Fuchs, proposes a new surgical treatment that would separate the processes of satiety and digestion. To do this, you need to find a healthy person who agreed to provide the stomach. He is found, and soon the millionaire showed fantastic food absorption abilities. The painful sensations of an overloaded stomach were experienced not by the glutton, but by the unemployed driver, Emil.

1928

Ataman Khmil'

Ataman Khmil' 1924

1

Revolutionary melodrama based on Lev Nikulin's story "Хміль". 1917. The main character of the film - a "bourgeois intellectual" - does not sympathize with any side and avoids revolutionary events. However, as a result of a series of adventurous adventures, love intrigues and communication with the people, he goes over to the side of the proletariat.

1924

The Eleventh Year

The Eleventh Year 1928

5.91

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

1928