Directing

Alexander Dovzhenko

Born September 10, 1894 · Viunyshche, Chernigov Governorate, Russian Empire [now part of Sosnytsia, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine]

Died November 25, 1956 · aged 62

Alexander Petrovich Dovzhenko, also Oleksandr Petrovych Dovzhenko (Russian: Александр Петрович Довженко, Ukrainian: Олександр Петрович Довженко; September 10 [O.S. August 29] 1894 – November 25, 1956), was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Ukrainian origin. He is often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers, alongside Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, and Vsevolod Pudov…

Known For

The Enchanted Desna

The Enchanted Desna · 1964

The Enchanted Desna

Based on the novel of the same name by Oleksandr Dovzhenko. About the childhood of the famous Ukrainian film director Oleksandr Dovzhenko, who was born on the ancient lands of Chernihiv, along the banks the Desna. The film consists of two parts. The first is the world shown through the impressions of the six-year-old Sashko. The second is the recollections and reasoning of Sashko, now an elderly colonel who liberates his native village during the war.

Ivan

A young farmer Ivan and his lazy father Stepan try to help with the construction of the Dniprohes, but he learns that strength is not enough for a worker and joins the Communist party.

Aerograd

Aerograd · 1935

MovieDramaAction

A Russian outpost in Eastern Siberia comes under threat of attack by the Japanese. Aerograd is a new town with a strategically located airfield of vital interest to the government. Work on the new outpost is complicated when tensions develop between workers and a religious sect. Relations between the two countries are further strained in the days before World War II, dating back to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

Earth

During the agrarian collectivization process in the Soviet Union, Vasyl, a peasant member of the youth division of the Communist Party, gets a tractor with the help of a local party organization and plows private boundaries on kulak fields. However, this enthusiasm will cost him dearly.

Michurin

Michurin · 1949

About the life of the Russian biologist Ivan Michurin. 1912 year. Having rejected American offers to work abroad, Michurin continues his research in the Russian Empire, despite the fact that his ideas are not perceived by the tsarist government, the church and idealistic science. Michurin is supported by prominent scientists of the country and he continues to work hard. After the October Revolution, a small Michurin garden in the city of Kozlov (the biologist's homeland) becomes a large state nursery.

The Diplomatic Pouch

The Diplomatic Pouch · 1927

The Diplomatic Pouch

MovieThrillerDrama

The Soviet embassy in England sends two couriers with diplomatic mail to Leningrad. The inspector of security police, White, and a group of policemen attack the Soviet diplomatic couriers at night. The documents get to an English trackman, who gives them to his son, a sailor in Portsmouth.

The Downfall of Deities

The Downfall of Deities · 1988

The Downfall of Deities

While watching Dovzhenko's Earth a young man imagines himself a painter in a Ukrainian village in the 1930s. All is pastoral idyll until the authorities arrive with Soviet wrath for tradition and religion.

Arsenal

Arsenal · 1929

A soldier returns to Kyiv after surviving a train crash and encounters clashes between nationalists and collectivists. The story of the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising at the Arsenal factory in Kyiv by the Central Council troops.

Filmography

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The Enchanted Desna

The Enchanted Desna · 1964

The Enchanted Desna

Based on the novel of the same name by Oleksandr Dovzhenko. About the childhood of the famous Ukrainian film director Oleksandr Dovzhenko, who was born on the ancient lands of Chernihiv, along the banks the Desna. The film consists of two parts. The first is the world shown through the impressions of the six-year-old Sashko. The second is the recollections and reasoning of Sashko, now an elderly colonel who liberates his native village during the war.

Novel

Ivan

A young farmer Ivan and his lazy father Stepan try to help with the construction of the Dniprohes, but he learns that strength is not enough for a worker and joins the Communist party.

Director

Aerograd

Aerograd · 1935

MovieDramaAction

A Russian outpost in Eastern Siberia comes under threat of attack by the Japanese. Aerograd is a new town with a strategically located airfield of vital interest to the government. Work on the new outpost is complicated when tensions develop between workers and a religious sect. Relations between the two countries are further strained in the days before World War II, dating back to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

Writer

Earth

During the agrarian collectivization process in the Soviet Union, Vasyl, a peasant member of the youth division of the Communist Party, gets a tractor with the help of a local party organization and plows private boundaries on kulak fields. However, this enthusiasm will cost him dearly.

Director

Michurin

Michurin · 1949

About the life of the Russian biologist Ivan Michurin. 1912 year. Having rejected American offers to work abroad, Michurin continues his research in the Russian Empire, despite the fact that his ideas are not perceived by the tsarist government, the church and idealistic science. Michurin is supported by prominent scientists of the country and he continues to work hard. After the October Revolution, a small Michurin garden in the city of Kozlov (the biologist's homeland) becomes a large state nursery.

Director

The Diplomatic Pouch

The Diplomatic Pouch · 1927

The Diplomatic Pouch

MovieThrillerDrama

The Soviet embassy in England sends two couriers with diplomatic mail to Leningrad. The inspector of security police, White, and a group of policemen attack the Soviet diplomatic couriers at night. The documents get to an English trackman, who gives them to his son, a sailor in Portsmouth.

Director

The Downfall of Deities

The Downfall of Deities · 1988

The Downfall of Deities

While watching Dovzhenko's Earth a young man imagines himself a painter in a Ukrainian village in the 1930s. All is pastoral idyll until the authorities arrive with Soviet wrath for tradition and religion.

Story

Arsenal

Arsenal · 1929

A soldier returns to Kyiv after surviving a train crash and encounters clashes between nationalists and collectivists. The story of the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising at the Arsenal factory in Kyiv by the Central Council troops.

Writer

Victory in Soviet Ukraine

Victory in Soviet Ukraine · 1945

Victory in Soviet Ukraine

MovieDocumentary

A wartime documentary directed by Alexander Dovzhenko and Yuliya Solntseva, depicting the final campaigns that drove Nazi forces from Ukraine in 1944–45. Combining frontline footage, liberated cityscapes, and scenes of returning civilians, the film chronicles both the devastation of occupation and the triumph of Soviet arms. It stands as both a historical record of the Ukrainian front and a patriotic celebration of victory at the close of the Second World War.

Director

The Golden Gates

The Golden Gates · 1971

The Golden Gates

MovieDocumentaryTV Movie

The film-remembrance of the creative fate of the Ukrainian Soviet film director Alexander Dovzhenko, shot on his diaries. It has his statements about his work, about the role of the artist in society, his plans and sources of inspiration, his artistic style and the peculiarities of his worldview. Used excerpts from his films and documentary footage taken during the director's life, as well as filmed fragments of the unfinished scripts " The Death of the Gods” and “Tsar”.

Writer

The Unforgettable

The Unforgettable · 1967

The Unforgettable

About hardships of the first years of War, which fell to the lot of ordinary people in Ukraine, who got under the yoke of fascist occupation, and heroic struggle against the invaders. A young Russian woman asks a Red Army soldier to spend the night with her in the wake of the Nazi invasion. Fearing she may soon perish, the woman hopes for one night of romance before what could be a horrible demise.

Book

Liberation

Liberation · 1940

MovieDocumentary

Wartime documentary by Dovzhenko and Solntseva.

Director

Poem of the Sea

Poem of the Sea · 1958

Poem of the Sea

A Soviet dam project means that many old Ukrainian villages will end up under water. There are conflicts between the dam engineers and villagers who don't want to move.

Writer

Chronicle of Flaming Years

Chronicle of Flaming Years · 1961

Chronicle of Flaming Years

Once again, director Yulia Solnsteva directs a movie that her late husband Alexandre Dovchenko scripted but did not live long enough to shoot. In this wartime drama, the emphasis is on the heroics of both the civilians and the soldiers during times of severe stress in World War II. At the core of the action is one man in particular, whose sacrifices and heroics speak for a much larger group.

Writer

Our Cinema

Our Cinema · 1940

MovieDocumentary

(archive footage)

Ukraine in Flames

Ukraine in Flames · 1943

Ukraine in Flames

MovieDocumentary

A 1943 Soviet war propaganda film by Ukrainian director Oleksandr Dovzhenko and Yuliya Solntseva. It is Dovzhenko's second World War II documentary, and dealt with the Battle of Kharkiv. The film incorporates German footage of the invasion of Ukraine, which was later captured by the Soviets.

Director

Ukrainian Night of the 33rd

Ukrainian Night of the 33rd · 1994

Ukrainian Night of the 33rd

MovieDocumentaryTV Movie

Ukrainian Night of the 33rd is series of documentaries about the Holodomor, which includes the “Fear”, “Horror”, “Guillotine”, “Case of Hrushevsky.” Each part is full of horror, and the viewer is constantly in tension.

Writer

Sonata about the artist

Sonata about the artist · 1966

Sonata about the artist

MovieDocumentary

The film is about Ivan Honchar, an ardent collector of Ukrainian antiquities, who turned his Kyiv apartment into a unique museum.

(voice)

How The Steel Was Tempered - On Screen and In Life

How The Steel Was Tempered - On Screen and In Life · 2007

How The Steel Was Tempered - On Screen and In Life

MovieDocumentaryTV Movie

How the film was made, how the events described in the film actually happened, about Nikolai Ostrovsky and much more.

Love's Berries

Love's Berries · 1926

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.

Director

Farewell, America!

Farewell, America! · 1951

Farewell, America!

MovieDramaComedy

An unfinished film by Oleksandr Dovzhenko, the film is a political lampoon based on the book entitled The Truth about US Diplomats, written in 1949 by the American writer Annabel Bukar. It exposes the underhanded actions of US Embassy personnel in Moscow at the onset of the Cold War. Dovzhenko managed to shoot only a half of the film, mainly the scenes that take place in the American Embassy.

Director

Zvenigora

Zvenigora · 1928

MovieDramaFantasy

An old man tells his grandson of a legendary treasure buried beneath the hills of Zvenigora, setting in motion a sweeping cinematic poem that intertwines Ukrainian folklore, history, and revolution.

Director

Shchors

Shchors · 1939

MovieDramaHistory

Cheered up by the revolutionary zeal, courage and energy of their leader, Nikolai Alexandrovitch Shchors, in 1919 the peasants and workers' groups gathered in the civil war- devastated Ukraine, to defeat the foreign conquerors and enemies of the revolution. However, it does not take long until a new danger threatens: this time the Polish Pans enter Ukraine, and General Dragomirov marches to Kiev. Shchors, however, gathers the revolutionary forces of the country and brings them to a victorious counter-attack.

Director

Mother. In the Name of Millions

Mother. In the Name of Millions · 2014

Mother. In the Name of Millions

Based on O. Dovzhenko's short story "Mother" about the tragic and majestic fate of a Ukrainian mother.

Short Story