oleksandr dovgenko

01103, Ukraine, Kiev, P.O. Box 54 Tel/fax: (044) 2 8 6 7 7 8 7 , M o b . 1 - 8 ( 0 5 0 ) 9 8 5 4 9 8 7 , M o b . 2 - 8 ( 0 6 8 ) 2 0 1 7 0 0 5

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THE CULTURAL HERITAGE: FILMS OF OLEKSANDR DOVGENKO

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1. Love’s Berry *Yagodka lyubvi+ aka Love’s Berries

The first director work of Oleksandr Dovzhenko, 1926, 10 min

Screenplay by: Oleksandr Dovzhenko Director: Oleksandr Dovzhenko

Cinematography by: Danylo Demutskyi, Yosyp Rona

Production designer: Ivan Suvorov

Cast: Maryan Krushelnitskiy, Margarita Chardynina-Barskaya, Dmytro Kapka, Ivan Zamychkovskiy,

Vladimir Lisovskiy, A. Belov, Leonid Chembarskiy, Igor Zemgano, K. Zapadnaya, Mykola Nademskyi.

A mistress of the barber Zhan Kovbasiuk abandons an infant to him. Zhan decides to get rid of a “natural”

child, he puts it stealthily in a toyshop. The mess with a “doll” is cleared up soon. A shocked clerk palms the

baby off on one of his clients, who in his turn puts a live doll to the Zhan’s barbershop. Having no idea how to

pacify the little one, the “dad” feeds it with milk through a barber spray, and then again, the “love affair berry”

comes to be on a boulevard bench… Once Kovbasiuk receives a notice of appointment from a court investigator,

he rushes in search of the child. Meanwhile his mistress obtains “justice” in the People’s Court. Nevertheless,

Zhan without any particular enthusiasm takes a decision to become a model father. After he and his mistress

contracted a marriage, it turns out that Zhan in fact was not the father of the child. But it’s too late…

2. Zvenyhora [Zvenyhora] aka Zvenigora / 1927, 70 min

Screenplay by: Mayk Yogansen, Yu. Yurtik (Yuriy Tyutyunnik)

Director: Oleksandr Dovzhenko

Cinematography by: Boris Zavelev Production designer: Vasyl Krychevskyi

Cast: Mykola Nademskyi, Semen Svashenko, Les Podorozhnyi, M. Charov, Georgiy Astafyev, I. Selyuk, Leonid

Barbe, M. Parshina, O. Simonov, and others.

According to some folk legends, Zvenyhora, hill that towers up amidst the steppe, hides invaluable treasures of

Scythians. The whole sequence of events – the Varangians, the struggle against the Polish gentry, the

Haydamachyna, the First World War, the Revolution – is combined by a strand ploy in a figure of the

ingenious, yet crafty, Ukrainian old man, the personification of the Ukrainian peasantry. As if his entire life is

devoted to hunting for the Zvenyhora treasures, and all his endeavours are futile. The old man cherishes hopes


that his grandson Tymish, the Red Army man, will discover the “treasures”. Another grandson of the old man,

Pavlo, who is a Petliura troop, after the defeat of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, escapes to the West. He

returns with the mission to blow up railway. He wants to exploit the old man to fulfil his task. A train frightens

the old man. The railway disaster does not happen. The workers, who travel by the train, take the old man with

them and the train speeds away as the unceasing revolution motion advances the bright future.

3. The Diplomatic Pouch [Sumka dipkuryera] aka Sumka Dipkuryera, 1927, 70 min

Screenplay by: Moisei Zats, Borys Sharanskyi (adapted by Oleksandr Dovzhenko)


Cinematography by: Mykola Kozlovskyi Production designer: Georgiy Bayzengerts

Cast: Mattea Buyukli, Anton Klymenko, G. Zelendzhev-Shipov, I. Penzo, Borys Zahorskyi, Sergii Minin, G.

Skoretskiy,

The film is based on a story of the tragic death of Teodor Nette, the Soviet diplomatic courier. The Soviet

Embassy in England sends two couriers with a diplomatic pouch to Leningrad (nowadays St. Petersburg).

White, the Political police inspector, with a squad attacks the Soviet couriers at night. One of them perishes

in an unequal fight, another one, wounded, falls out of a train. A trackwalker, Englishman, gets the bag and

passes it to his son in Portsmouth, from where a steamer to Leningrad departs. The police find out that there is

the Soviet diplomatic documentation hidden on the English steamer, but they fails to intercept it.

The film survived without the first and second parts.

4. Arsenal (“The January revolt of 1918 in Kyiv”) / 1929, 70 min

[Arsenal] aka January Uprising in Kyiv in 1918

Screenplay by: Oleksandr Dovzhenko


Cinematography by: Danylo Demutskyi

Production design by: Yosyp Shpinel, Volodymyr Miuller

Original music by: Igor Belza

Cast: Semen Svashenko, Mykola Kuchynskyi, Dmytro

Erdman, Sergii Petrov, Georgiy Kharkov, Amvrosii Buchma, F. Merlatti, Mykola Nademskyi, Borys Zahorskyi,

Tetiana Vagner, Petro Masokha, and others.

The First World War keeps going. A heart-broken torpid woman in the middle of a house – she has nothing to

feed her hungry children with. A legless cripple, a former soldier, beats a horse despairingly. “You’ve missed


your aim, Ivan!” – says to him the thin, as a bag of bones, horse. A battlefield, a gas attack. Waves of “joyous”

gas(sarin) float over the field – it covers the dead soldiers’ faces with dreadful masks of eternal “laughter”.

Armies fall apart, soldiers desert entrenchments, disperse to their homes. The February Revolution of 1917

begins. The Central Rada (Council) is established in Kyiv. Tymish, a former worker of the “Arsenal” factory,

which comes to be a stronghold of revolutionary events, turns back form the battle- front. The Bolshevik party

urges workers to revolt against the Central Rada Government, but forces are unequal. Tymish is rounded up by

haydamaks. He has run out of ammunition for his machine- gun. Tymish rises over it to his complete height.

Haydamaks shoot him point-blank. But their bullets are useless against the hero… His worker body is immortal.

5. Earth [Zemlya] aka Zemlya aka Soil/ 1930, 60 min


Cinematography by: Danylo Demutskyi Production designer: Vasyl Krychevskyi Original music by: Levko

Revutskyi

Cast: Stepan Shkurat, Semen Svashenko, Yuliya Solntseva, Yelena Maksimova, Ivan Franko, Petro Masokha,

Volodymyr Mykhailov, P. Petrik, Pavlo Umanets, Ye. Bondina, Luka Lyashenko, Mykola Nademskyi, Vasyl

Krasenko.

A poetical film-story about the events that describe the collectivization in Ukraine at the end of 1920’s, the

formation of the first collective farm communes (kolkhozes), the class struggle in the rural area.

The Ukrainian land is rich with its bearing… Mighty meditative oxen tow a plough cutting through the soil

and exposing a fat loam – the chernozem. Earth, it is like the very life… There is an ash-grey-headed old man,

dying in the garden among apple-trees and pear-trees. He was born on this earth, worked on it and will rest in

it. His place on this earth takes his smiling grandson Vasyl, a handsome lad. Here he rides on a “steel horse”,

ploughing down limits of the lots, with which the land is covered – “mine…”, “mine…”, “mine”… The land

belongs to everyone – this is the slogan, with which the next generation is ushered into the life. However, those,

who stick to their “lots”, do not share their concept. Horse in the open country gives a start in the moment of

the shot, Vasyl falls down to the ground.

The entire village comes to his funeral. Blooming trees bend over the face of the murdered Young Communist

Leaguer. The murderer Khoma, the son of the village rich man, gives his desperate confessions. He tries to find

shelter in the earth, but it does not want to host him...

On the Brussels World Exhibition (Belgium, 1958) the film was named one of the 12 best films of all times and

nations based on the international survey of critics.


6. Ivan [Ivan] / 1932, 60 min


Cinematography by: Danylo Demutskyi, Yuriy Yekelchik, Mykhailo Hlider

Production designer: Yuriy Khomaza

Original music by: Yuliy Meytus, Borys Liatoshynskyi Cast: Petro Masokha, Stepan Shagaida, K.

Bondarevskiy, Stepan Shkurat, Dmytro Holubynskyi, Oleksandr Zapolskyi, Terentii Yura, Feodosiya

Barvinskaya, Liudmyla Yaroshenko, Oleksandr Khvylia, Mykhailo Haivoronskyi, Maksym Hornatko, Mykola

Nademskyi, Lavrentii Masokha, and others.

The film poem about the construction of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Station, about the life of a country lad,

who along with other youths comes to build one of the greatest constructions of the Socialist industrial building.

The majestic panorama of the “Dniprohes” is open for the eye of the country boy. The roar of concrete mixers,

steam hammers, shrill train hooters suppresses the voice of an individual. A bucket broke loose and killed a

Young Communist Leaguer. His mother runs across the dam and it seems to her that terrible machines pursue

her. Nonetheless, strong, sinewy young bodies move undisturbed finding the rhythm in their labour. The lines

of the “Dniprohes” become more visible. Even long unshaven slovenly man, a shirker, a loafer, cannot spoil the

solemn appearance of the construction. He fidgets near the “black cash-box”; a wrathful voice of the radio

pursues him. In the meantime, Ivan, a last night’s country boy, mauls with a hammer in the centre of the

building. He realizes that strength alone is not enough. He has to learn. In the last scene of the film, Ivan is

admitted into the Communist Party. The doors of an institute of higher education fly open before him.

The Venice International Film Festival, 1934 – The Cup for the best program presented by a state (the USSR).

7. Air City [Aerograd] aka Frontier (USA) / 1935, 80 min


Cinematography by: Eduard Tisse, Mikhail Gindin, Nikolay Smirnov

Production design by: Aleksey Utkin, Viktor Panteleyev Original music by: Dmitriy Kabalevskiy

Cast: Stepan Shagaida, Sergey Stolyarov, Yelena Melnikova, Stepan Shkurat, V. Novikov, Viktor Uralskiy,

Boris Dobronravov, Yelena Maksimova, G. Tsoy, L. Kan, I. Kim, M. Tabunasov, and others.

The onset of the 1930’s. The USSR experiences the height of the Socialist building. It is planned to lay the

foundation of a defence outpost in the Far East to protect eastern boundaries of the state.

Stepan Hlushak, a hunter and a former guerrilla warrior, accidentally spots in taiga the prints of the

Manchukuo saboteurs. Hlushak kills one of them, a Japanese Samurai. The other one manages to conceal

himself. Looking for him, Hlushak comes to his friend, Khudyakov, also a hunter and a former guerrilla. He

assures Hlushak that there are no saboteurs in his dwelling. Meanwhile, in a far village a plot is being hatched.

The rich man Shabanov attempts to incite Old Believers to revolt against the Soviet authorities, against the

Bolsheviks, which came to build in the midst of Taiga a new city – Aerograd. Shabanov promises Old Believers

that there will be a support from Japanese. A guerrilla troop, Van-Lin, a friend of Hlushak, reveals Khudyakov’s

treachery – he finds in Khudyakov’s dwelling a Japanese saboteur. Khudyakov kills Van-Lin. A rebellion breaks

out in the Old Believer’s village. Hlushak summons former guerrillas. The conspiracy is prevented. Hlushak

personally executes his ex-friend, now a traitor, Khudyakov… Planes soar over the Taiga, they carry builders of

the coming Air City

8. Shchors [Shchors] aka Shors (USA) / 1939, 120 min


Co-director: Yuliya Solntseva

Cinematography by: Yuriy Yekelchik Production designer: Morits Umanskiy

Original music by: Dmitriy Kabalevskiy

Cast: Yevgeniy Samoylov, Ivan Skuratov, Luka Lyashenko, Fedir Ischenko, Nina Nikitina, R. Chalysh, Hanna

Borysohlibska, Oleksandr Khvylia, Sergey Komarov, Dmytro Miliutenko, Georgiy Polezhayev, Mykola


Komissarov, Yu. Bantysh, D. Barvinskiy, Dmytro Kostenko, Petro Masokha, P. Radetskiy, P. Tatarenko, O.

Glazunov, Hans Klering, Valentin Dukler, Dmytro Kadnikov, O. Levchenko, Oleksii Zahorskyi, and others.

Year 1919. Germans retreated from Ukraine. The Directoire, presided by Symon Petliura, governs in Kyiv.

Meanwhile, Mykola Schors’s division head to Kyiv. According to Schors’s plan, the regiment of Bozhenko

liberates Vinnytsia, Zhmerynka and other Ukrainian cities concurrently. The Red troops, which defend

Berdychiv, yield to the pressure of Petliura’s forces and retreat. Relief comes with Schors, who serves as an

example to the retreating and encourages them. A bloody skirmish begins; the town changes hands many times.

When the town is finally liberated, Schors talkes to his soldiers during the battle break. They dream about the

future, about what their posterity will say of them. A short relaxation comes to an end, and another fight is

waiting. From north of Bakhmach general Dragomirov heads to Kyiv. Deadly wounded Bozhenko passes away.

Schors personally runs the parade of young commanders – students of the Young Commanders School, who are

professional, qualified personnel for the Soviet Army.

The film is awarded to the Stalin (State) Prize of the First Grade (1941).

9. Liberation [Osvobozhdeniye] aka Osvobozhdeniye / 1940, 80 min

Screenplay by: Oleksandr Dovzhenko

Directors: Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Yuliya Solntseva

Cinematography by: Yuriy Yekelchik, Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Mykola Bykov, Yuriy Tamarskiy

Production designer: Morits Umanskiy

Original music by: Borys Liatoshynskyi

Feature documentary film.

About dramatic times in the life of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, the reunification of Eastern Ukraine

and Western Ukraine into a single state. The film contains the following scenes: the public meeting in a Hutsul

village, where Oleksandr Dovzhenko makes a speech, the beginning of the People’s Assembly of Western

Ukraine in Lviv on the 26th of October, 1939, the session of the People’s Assembly of Western Ukraine in

Bilostok, passing of the Act of the Reunification of Western Ukraine with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist

Republic on the Third Session of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Fifth

Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

10. Battle for our Soviet Ukraine [Bitva za nashu Sovetskuyu Ukrainu] aka Battle for Soviet Russia

(UK) aka Ukraine in Flames (USA) / 1943, 70 min

Art director and author of narration: Oleksandr Dovzhenko

Directors: Yuliya Solntseva, Yakiv Avdeienko

Cinematography by: V. Afanasyev, Kostyantyn Bohdan, Mykola Bykov, Boris Vakar, Mykhailo Hlider,

Solomon Golbrikh, Izrail Goldshteyn, I. Zaporozhskiy, M. Kapkin, Kasatkin, Isaak Katsman, V. Komarov,

Yuliy Kun, Mogilevskiy, Valentin Orlyankin, B. Rogachevskiy, S. Semenov, Viktor Smorodin, I. Sof’in, S.

Sheynin, V. Shtatland, Sergey Urusevskiy, V. Frolenko, and others

Narrator: Leonid Khmara

Original music by: Dmytro Klebanov, Andrii Shtoharenko

Sound editors: V. Kotov, Ye. Kashkevich

Conductor: D. Blok

The film depicts concrete events of the Great Patriotic War during 1941-1943: difficult battles for the liberation

of Kharkiv, Artemivsk, Kramatorsk, Donetsk, Mariupol, guerrilla camp of S.A. Kovpak. Episodes of joint

operations of Ukrainian and Czechoslovak units are included in the film. Soviet and German (captured)

newsreels are also used. The film was dubbed into 26 languages; it was widely presented in European countries

and America, the USA and Canada in particular.


11. Victory in Ukraine and the Expulsion of the German Invaders from the Boundaries of the

Ukrainian Soviet Territory [Pobeda na Pravoberezhnoy Ukraine i izgnaniye nemetskikh

zakhvatchikov za predely ukrainskikh sovetskikh zemel] aka Victory on the Right Bank Ukraine

(UK) / 1944, min

Screenplay by: Yuliya Solntseva, A. Kuznetsov

Author of narration: Oleksandr Dovzhenko

Narrator: Leonid Khmara

Directors: Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Yuliya Solntseva

Cinematography by: Kostiantyn Bohdan, Boris Vakar, N. Vikhirev, Volodymyr Voitenko, Izrail Goldshteyn,

V. Dobronitskiy, D. Ibragimov, P. Kasatkin, Isaak Katsman, Oleksandr Kovalchuk, A. Krichevskiy, Yuliy Kun,

K. Kutub- Zade, A. Laptiy, G. Mogilevskiy, Valentin Orlyankin, M. Otsep, Pavel Rusanov, A. Semin, A.

Sof’in, Mykola Topchii, D. Sholomovich, and others (more than forty cameramen shot combat operations)

Original music by: G. Popov

Sound editors: V. Kotov, Ye. Kashkevich

Conductor: N. Anosov

The historical newsreel, which covers the events of 1943-1944: forcing of the Dnipro near Pereiasliv-

Khmelnytskyi, Kremenchuk and Vyshhorod, the liberation of Kyiv, Lviv, arrival of the Soviet Army in the

Carpathians; depicts self- sacrificing toil of the Soviet people in the rear.

12. Michurin [Michurin] aka Life in Bloom (USA), 1948, 100 min


Cinematography by: Leonid Kosmatov, Yuliy Kun Production design by: Mikhail Bogdanov, Gennadiy

Myasnikov

Original music by: Dmitriy Shostakovich

Cast: Grigoriy Belov, Vladimir Solovyev, A. Vasilyeva, Nikolay Shamin, Fedor Grigoryev, Mikhail Zharov,

Konstantin Nasonov, Aleksey Zhiltsov, Ivan Nazarov, Viktor Khokhryakov, Dmitriy Dubov, Gennadiy

Pechnikov, Sergey Tsenin, Yuriy Lyubimov, V. Isayev, Ivan Kashirin, and others.

About the life and work of the prominent Soviet biologist, gardener, Ivan Michurin.

Rumours about unusual experiments of the Russian gardener Michurin can be heard far outside Russia.

Americans come to a little town, where Michurin dwells. They tempt the scientist to go to America, promise

him all wonders. However, Michurin is devoted to Russia, though tsarist government does not treat him

appropriately. Overcoming impediments of officials, Michurin keeps researching and experimenting with

garden plants and dreams about the times, when people in full extent will be able to use the results of his work.

The Revolution of 1917 brings such times. Michurin’s garden in a town of Kozlov becomes one of the centres of

the Soviet biology.

The film is awarded to the Stalin (State) Prize of the Second Grade (1949).

On the International Gothvald Film Festival (Czechoslovakia, 1949) the film was awarded to the Labour Prize.

13. Oleksandr Dovzhenko. The Contemplations After Life [Oleksandr Dovzhenko. Rozdumy pislia

zhyttia] / 1992, 10 min

Screenplay by: Bohdan Diatsenko, Hennadii Halchenko

Author of narration: Valentyn Artamonov

Director: Mykhailo Donets

Cinematography by: Yevhen Tsypl’onkov

About the life tragedy of Oleksandr Dovzhenko. About his childhood, the Revolution, the war, the Central

Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Politburo meeting in January, 1944, when Stalin

lambasted Dovzhenko’s film story “Ukraine in Flames”… About the events, when by the will of “the high and

mighty” Dovzhenko was detached from Ukraine until he died. The film tracks the discernment phase of

Dovzhenko the Human, Dovzhenko the Artist, when the creative creed “beauty is larger than truth” changes

into “truth above all” – the Truth of Life, the Truth of History.

oleksandr dovgenko

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