Ukrainian Art 15/03/2007 Ukrainian cinema. Looking back…
In Ukraine, it might be useless to remind the words of the half-forgotten old nuisance “proletariat leader” Lenin who said almost a century ago that “among all arts for us cinema is the most important”. This outstanding PR-man of his times well understood that cinematography has been a powerful tool to influence public opinions, educate and thus set a new form of ideology. Nevertheless, despite the ideological pressure Ukraine gave birth to a range of talented filmmakers who have been listed among “fathers” of the world cinematographic art. So what is the history of this most popular among arts in Ukraine and how are things at present?
Motion pictures were first seen in Ukraine in 1896 when the cinematographic productions of the Lumiere brothers appeared in the Black Sea port of Odessa and then spread to other cities. At the beginning of the 20th century film studios in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa began to produce films on Ukrainian themes but with the outbreak of revolution in 1917 the development of cinema almost ceased.
Under the soviet rule all private film studios were nationalized. At first there were only two film studios (known as film factories) - one in Yalta and one in Odessa. In 1929 the largest film studio opened in Kyiv which has been named after an outstanding Ukrainian film director Olexander Dovzhenko. Thus the production base of the film industry, and the network of theaters expanded enormously, as well as the army of cinema-goers. With such a substantial base, Ukraine later on became one of the most powerful and creative among former USSR republics encompassing some 30 per cent of the whole film production in the Soviet Union. In the mid 1980-s, the Ukrainian movie industry annually produced about 60 full-length features and 500 documentaries, animated and popular science films generating over $200 million gross revenue a year. But the main thing was the distinctive national fragrance that the Ukrainian film possessed through years.
The screen names
Olexander Dovzhenko. Controversial film director
Sergey Eisenstein
Sergey Paradjanov
Ukrainian Film Today. Oles Sanin. Making Ukraine fashionable
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