Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Silent Trilogy: Life and Death in the Times of Revolution

The ICA, in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute in London and the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre in Kyiv, Ukraine, presents a retrospective of Oleksandr Dovzhenko‘s silent film masterpieces – the so-called ‘Ukrainian trilogy’: Zvenyhora (1928), Arsenal (1929), and Earth (1930). These films were recently restored by the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre, and these modern versions feature new soundtracks created by contemporary composers from both Ukraine and Great Britain.

A world-renowned film director, Oleksandr Dovzhenko (1894-1956) was born into an illiterate Ukrainian peasant family. Hoping for social and national emancipation, Dovzhenko embraced the Ukrainian socialist revolution of 1917. ‘I called out slogans at meetings and was as happy as a dog that had broken its chain, sincerely believing that now all men were brothers, that everything was completely clear; that the peasants had the land, that workers had the factories, the teachers had the schools, the doctors had the hospitals, the Ukrainians had Ukraine, the Russians had Russia; that the next day the whole world would find out about this and, struck with our vision, would do likewise,’ he wrote later in his autobiography.
Along with Sergei Eiseinstein, Dziga Vertov and Vsevolod Pudovkin, Dovzhenko commands a leading role among Soviet avant-garde directors. Praised for its aesthetic qualities, Dovzhenko’s ‘Ukrainian trilogy’ is considered among the best silent films in the history of the world cinema.

Dovzhenko’s trilogy (as well as Dziga Vertov’s trilogy which includes Man with a Movie Camera, Eleventh and Enthusiasm) was produced by the All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Directorate (VUFKU) during two short-lived policies of the Soviet State in the 1920s: the New Economic Policy (known as NEP) and the ‘indigenization’ policy (known as korenizatsiya), which created a unique environment for the revival of Ukrainian culture. The creation of VUFKU in 1922, powered by its economical and political autonomy from Moscow as well as the emergence of a generation of bold revolutionary artists such as Dovzhenko, Vertov, Ivan Kavaleridze and Heorhii Stabovyi, brought to life a unique phenomenon of Ukrainian experimental film in the 1920s.

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