VUFKU: Lost & Found is a documentary history of the 2019 Ukrainian film exhibition. The exhibition and the accompanying text represent a significant intervention in the historiography of early 20th-century Ukrainian cinema. Originally a multimedia exhibition hosted by the Dovzhenko Centre Film Museum in Kyiv, this project meticulously reconstructs the achievements of the All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration (VUFKU) during a brief period of extraordinary creative flourishing from 1922 to 1930. The national film studio and cinema organisation—a unique cultural and political experiment—stands as one of the most ambitious aesthetic and ideological modernisation projects in 20th-century Ukrainian history. VUFKU’s complex history was effaced as Stalin's ascent took firm hold in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The aesthetically beautiful catalogue of the exhibition presents this earlier trajectory not only as a landmark in early Ukrainian film avant-garde aesthetics but also as a case study in how cinema functions as a nexus of aesthetics, ideology, studio imperatives, and technology.
Established in 1922 in Ukraine, VUFKU emerged from the early Soviet policy of nationalisation, transforming private film enterprises into a centralised Ukrainian body under the auspices of the People's Commissariat for Education. This administrative reorganisation aligned with the Bolsheviks' broader strategy of Ukrainization (1923-1932), which sought to integrate Ukrainian cultural identity within Soviet ideology. As the catalogue notes, VUFKU benefited from the unique political and economic conditions during the New Economic Policy (NEP) period (1921-1928), which promoted relative autonomy and financial self-sufficiency for cultural institutions, as well as a lingering formalist experimentation fostered by the Revolution and international modernism. By 1929, VUFKU was synonymous with cinema in Ukraine, operating film studios in Odesa, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Yalta and producing groundbreaking works that garnered international attention, including those by Dziga Vertov (1896-1954, pioneering documentary filmmaker known for Kino-Pravda) and Oleksandr Dovzhenko, whose films, including Earth (1930) and especially Arsenal (1929), remain still relevant today.
At its zenith, VUFKU sought models paralleling developments in Hollywood—particularly Charlie Chaplin's independent production methods and innovative distribution strategies—and Weimar Germany's early cinema, especially the work of Fritz Lang (Dr. Mabuse, 1922, and Metropolis, 1927), F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu, 1922 and Sunrise, 1927), and G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box, 1929), while pursuing its own ideological imperatives marked by the Revolution and Ukraine's enduring questions of national emancipation and autonomy. The construction of the Kyiv Film Studio—then the largest in Europe—and the production of landmark films like Earth (1930) by Oleksandr Dovzhenko, now considered one of the most influential silent films ever made, as well as such innovative avant-garde productions as Bread (Mykola Shpykovs’kyi, 1929) and In Spring (Mikhail Kaufman, 1929), underscored the ambitions of this institution. Yet, as the exhibition carefully documents, these advancements were systematically dismantled by Stalin's centralisation policies and the later draconian censorship of films and auteurs. The early 1930s saw the dismantling of VUFKU and its reorganisation into Ukrainfilm in 1930, effectively subsuming Ukrainian cinema into the Soviet system.
Visually stunning with posters, stills, and 1920s formalist graphic design, visual materials from the exhibition document Ukraine's cinematic 1920s as a period of extraordinary artistic experimentation. VUFKU played a critical role in translating and continuing the line of avant-garde aesthetics in cinema. The exhibition foregrounds the contributions of figures like Dziga Vertov and Mikhail Kaufman (Vertov's brother and cinematographer), whose work exemplified the Kinoki philosophy, as well as lesser-known figures such as Ivan Kavaleridze (1887-1978, sculptor-turned-filmmaker who brought monumental style to Ukrainian cinema) and Vasyl Krychevs’kyi, whose architecture and art direction brought Ukrainian modernist aesthetics into film.
The catalogue is contextualised by contemporary cultural theorists Georg Simmel (1858-1918), whose work on metropolitan modernity influenced period film theory, and Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) whose writings on mechanical reproduction and cinema shaped modern media theory. Such lost films as Ivan Kavaleridze’s Downpour (Zlyva, 1929) and Heorhii Tasin’s The Night Coachman (Nichnyi Viznyk, 1928), among others, highlight the breadth of VUFKU's cinematic vision. Interspersed with found stills and surviving photographs of constructivist design, the exhibition explores themes of urbanisation and industrialisation through both celebrated and obscure films. These films not only reflected a modernist ethos but also articulated a distinctly Ukrainian perspective within the Soviet context.
The catalogue also highlights the filmic work of Les Kurbas (1887-1937), another theatre luminary who brought revolutionary approaches to VUFKU through his cinematic collaborations. His aesthetic was deeply experimental and forward-thinking, drawing on a mix of European modernism, Ukrainian folk traditions, and radical artistic innovations of the Russian and European avant-garde. While all his known films are lost, the catalogue presents images from his constructivist theatrical staging, cubist-inspired designs, and montage techniques to create striking visual and narrative effects. Known for his work with the experimental Berezil Theatre, Kurbas's integration of constructivist principles into cinematic set design and narrative structures represented a fusion of Ukrainian modernism with the global avant-garde. Tragically, Kurbas was arrested in 1933 and executed during the Great Purge in 1937, cutting short his innovative contributions to Ukrainian cinema. According to the catalogue, at least 52% of VUFKU's known features from this period and an even greater share of its documentaries and shorter films are no longer extant.
The international reach of VUFKU's films is a focal point of the exhibition, underscored by a visual timeline of 1918-1932 that contextualises VUFKU's genesis and transformation under Stalin. Vertov’s and Dovzhenko's works received acclaim in Western Europe and the United States, as illustrated with French and English reviews. The exhibition draws parallels between VUFKU's output and contemporaneous works by filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin, 1925; October, 1927, with comparative production costs) and Walter Ruttmann (Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, 1927), as well as visiting Japanese filmmakers such as Kenzō Masaoka, highlighting Ukrainian cinema's participation in a broader modernist movement.
VUFKU's production strategies are also shown intersecting with the work of prominent Jewish writers Isaac Babel and Sholem Aleichem, who contributed scenarios and adaptations to the studio's output, enriching its cultural diversity and outreach. Their collaborations with the studio demonstrate VUFKU's role in fostering cross-cultural artistic exchange within the Soviet sphere.
VUFKU. Lost & Found is as much about new historiographic possibility and reclamation as it is about cinema. The curatorial approach emphasises the materiality of film as an artefact and its entanglement with the broader socio-cultural economy, both the necessity of reclaiming lost or suppressed histories (the lost films) but also necessity of redressing false constructed narratives and these continuing trajectories. By juxtaposing archival fragments with contemporary more sympathetic reinterpretations of lost texts, the exhibition constructs a layered narrative that bridges the past and present in complex dialogue.
In the book's final section, the librettos for lost films for which only synopses remain have been productively reimagined by contemporary Ukrainian writers such as Oleksandr Irvanets and Natalka Sniadanko who symbolically reclaim these lost histories as a complex contemporary socio-political statement that is, perhaps, also relevant today. Their texts, transformed into light-and-shadow installations, evoke the ephemeral nature of cinema while underscoring the gaps in cultural memory.
This reclamation of a historiography of lost films is one of the text's most poignant achievements. The Dovzhenko Centre's archival efforts, which began in 2011, have restored dozens of films, some of which were previously thought to be irretrievably lost and still largely inaccessible outside the country. These efforts include new restorations of canonical works like Earth as well as lesser-known productions that enrich our understanding of VUFKU's scope and diversity.
Equally significant is the recovery of voices silenced by history. The exhibition highlights contributions from poets and writers like Mykhail Semenko (1892-1937) and Geo Shkurupii (1903-1937), whose intertitles and translations infused VUFKU films with linguistic vitality, presenting this period as one of dynamic creativity, tragically curtailed by political repression.
VUFKU. Lost & Found is a vital contribution to the study of Ukrainian, Eastern European and Soviet cinema, especially of the still larger forgotten ‘other’ republics. By situating VUFKU within its historical and international contexts, the exhibition not only reconstructs a pivotal cultural moment but also opens new avenues for dialogue about the intersections of art, politics, identity, and empire, widening the definitions of the post-colonial and illuminating the historical complexity of these moments. The catalogue’s innovative use of archival and contemporary materials transforms the exhibition into a living text, inviting viewers to visually reconsider cinema's role in shaping and reflecting cultural memory. In the era of, a renewed interest in Ukraine's cultural heritage, and, a simultaneous continual questioning whether such a heritage or country has a right to exist, this exhibition and its catalogue serves as marker, celebration, intervention and a call to action, reminding us of art's enduring power to transcend time and politics through material evidence.
Ray Uzwyshyn, Ph.D.
University of California, Riverside
Email raymondu@ucr.edu
Dr. Raymond Uzwyshyn serves as Acting AUL for Research and Technology Services for the University of California Libraries, Riverside.
Uzwyshyn, Ray. 2025. Review: “Stanislav Menzelevskyi, Anna Onufriienko, Oleksandr Teliuk, Ivan Kozlenko (eds.): VUFKU: Lost & Found: A Brief History of a Ukrainian Film Studio and Its Lasting Legacy (Exhibition Catalogue)”. Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe 20. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.17892/app.2025.00020.385.
URL: http://www.apparatusjournal.net/
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