Yurii Illienko

The Eve of Ivan Kupalo

Petro is a modest farmhand living in an impoverished village in some unspecified long-ago era. He wants to marry the lovely Pidorka, but her stern father won't hear of it. The mischievous demon Basavriuk, offers a deal, enticing Petro into crime for the sake of fortune. Based on Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Eve of Ivan Kupala” (“St John’s Eve”) and Ukrainian folk tales.

Ivan Mykolaichuk. Dedication

The story of life and death of actor Ivan Mykolaychuk - the legend of Ukrainian poetic cinema. The film is stylized as Vertep Christmas mystery: the heroes are explaining themselves with the roles they play.

A Farewell To Cinema

Documentary about post-Soviet society’s abandonment of cinema in favour of the free market.

To Dream and to Live

The script about loneliness, conformity and the impossibility of creative realization scared the editorial censorship at the studio, and then at Derzhkino. A lot of claims were made against him. The demands for amendments and endless additions and rewrites by the authors lasted for about a year. The original version of the title "Na pokhony!" ("To bow down!") was replaced by "To Dream and to Live". According to Pylyp Ilyenko, the director's eldest son, this name appeared "as a result of censor pressure." Censorship stopped the tape 40 times: at the stage of the literary script, director's, during film tests (the actors were not approved), filming, etc. The film catastrophically fell apart into fragments, into masterfully filmed, but unrelated scenes. The director called the finished version a "dead film".

1 Newton Street

Timofey Suvernev comes to Moscow from a distant island to study. Tim successfully passes the exams at the institute, and immediately plunges into a turbulent student life. Through hard work and study, he achieves brilliant success, his student work, which he wrote together with his classmate Galtsov, receives a gold medal at the competition.

Out of Boredom

An intimate drama set in a remote railway station that grows into a tragedy of the whole generation and epoch, based on a Gorki story.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

In the Carpathian Mountains of 19th-century Ukraine, love, hate, life and death among the Hutsul people are as they’ve been since time began. Ivan is drawn to Marichka, the beautiful young daughter of the man who killed his father. But fate tragically decrees that the two lovers will remain apart.

The Last Bunker

The film tells about the last stage of the struggle of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army against the NKVD squads. Events occurring after the end of World War II.

The Eve of Ivan Kupalo

Petro is a modest farmhand living in an impoverished village in some unspecified long-ago era. He wants to marry the lovely Pidorka, but her stern father won't hear of it. The mischievous demon Basavriuk, offers a deal, enticing Petro into crime for the sake of fortune. Based on Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Eve of Ivan Kupala” (“St John’s Eve”) and Ukrainian folk tales.

Ivan Mykolaichuk. Dedication

The story of life and death of actor Ivan Mykolaychuk - the legend of Ukrainian poetic cinema. The film is stylized as Vertep Christmas mystery: the heroes are explaining themselves with the roles they play.

A Farewell To Cinema

Documentary about post-Soviet society’s abandonment of cinema in favour of the free market.

To Dream and to Live

The script about loneliness, conformity and the impossibility of creative realization scared the editorial censorship at the studio, and then at Derzhkino. A lot of claims were made against him. The demands for amendments and endless additions and rewrites by the authors lasted for about a year. The original version of the title "Na pokhony!" ("To bow down!") was replaced by "To Dream and to Live". According to Pylyp Ilyenko, the director's eldest son, this name appeared "as a result of censor pressure." Censorship stopped the tape 40 times: at the stage of the literary script, director's, during film tests (the actors were not approved), filming, etc. The film catastrophically fell apart into fragments, into masterfully filmed, but unrelated scenes. The director called the finished version a "dead film".

1 Newton Street

Timofey Suvernev comes to Moscow from a distant island to study. Tim successfully passes the exams at the institute, and immediately plunges into a turbulent student life. Through hard work and study, he achieves brilliant success, his student work, which he wrote together with his classmate Galtsov, receives a gold medal at the competition.

Out of Boredom

An intimate drama set in a remote railway station that grows into a tragedy of the whole generation and epoch, based on a Gorki story.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

In the Carpathian Mountains of 19th-century Ukraine, love, hate, life and death among the Hutsul people are as they’ve been since time began. Ivan is drawn to Marichka, the beautiful young daughter of the man who killed his father. But fate tragically decrees that the two lovers will remain apart.

The Last Bunker

The film tells about the last stage of the struggle of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army against the NKVD squads. Events occurring after the end of World War II.

My Son is Somewhere

An old fisherman spends his days waiting to hear from his son who left the village long time ago.

A Story of the Forest: Mavka

Mavka, a water nymph, loves Lukash, a country youth. Their brief happiness ends when Lukash is forced to marry the shrewish Kilina. The spirit of the forest turns Lukash into a wolf as punishment for his infidelity. The strength of Mavka's love breaks the spell, but Kilina curses the nymph, transforming her into a weeping willow. This beautiful and tragic story is based on a play written in 1912 by Lesya Ukrainka, a Ukrainian poet, writer and political, civil and female activist, and includes mythological characters taken from Ukrainian folklore.

A Strip of Uncut Wild Flowers

A story of two delinquent boys at a boarding school, struggling to cope with fathers who abandoned them, and retreating into fantasy.

A Spring for the Thirsty

A parable centering on an old man who lives a secluded life in the desert, alone with only his memories and photographs. His wellspring, once a source of joy and hope for thirsty passersby, is now rarely used. No longer able to find comfort in his memories, he turns all his photographs to face the walls.

Ivan Marchuk: "The voice of my soul"

The figure of the world-famous Ukrainian artist Ivan Fedorovych Marchuk, whose paintings present Ukrainian art on all continents of the world, became the basis of this documentary.

The Feast of the Baked Potato

Drama about Aleksandra Avramovna Derevskaya (1902-1959), who, between the two wars - the Civil and Great Patriotic War, raised 48 orphan children of different nationalities. After her death, each birthday, her large family gathers at the table, to preserve the tradition of serving baked potatoes, which was a favorite dish of the household head.

Ave Maria

Once in the underpass at the Philharmonic, a singer Lyudmila hears a heavenly voice of a beggar-girl singing "Ave Maria" ...

Swan Lake: The Zone

A convict is forced to hide within a model of a hammer and sickle. Here a tragic romance ensues between the convict and woman worker; which is spoilt by the woman's jealous young son. The convict is then forced to undergo a tragic bid for freedom which ends with the beauty of swans contrasted with the imprisoned convicts and the hopeful but ultimately tragic wait by the woman for her lover.

The White Bird Marked with Black

A family struggles to survive in an area that was claimed as part of Rumania, Poland and Ukraine, all within a short span of time. When World War II comes, various family members choose different masters; some even choose to work for the Soviets. War, struggle, marriages, births, deaths--all these events punctuate the story of this large family.

Farewell, Doves

Genka Sakhnenko, a seventeen-year-old boy, has been passionate about pigeon breeding since childhood. But he begins to make a living, falls in love with the girl Tanya and realizes that it is time to leave his childhood hobbies.

Paradzhanov: Christ score in C major

In 1989, Yurii Illienko came to Tbilisi to show Sergei Parajanov his film “Swan Lake. The Zone“, based on Parajanov's prison stories. The next day after the screening, Illienko shows the film to Soviet central party newspaper Pravda, which publishes the news of the resignation of Vladimir Shcherbytsky, who had ordered Parajanov's initial imprisonment. Illienko hands Parajanov the newspaper and turns on a household video camera. What follows is a friendly conversation between the two geniuses.

The Legend of Princess Olga

The film is a poetic adaptation of a series of stories (oral and written) about Princess Olha of Kyivan Rus' (Ukraine-Rusʹ) at the start of the 11th century. Inspired by chronicles and folk legends this is a story of a common girl Olha who married Prince Ihor and became his successor on the throne after his murder and one of the most remarkable political leaders in early medieval European history. She converted to Christianity and brought her realm into Europe.

Defying Everybody

The movie takes us through the trials and tribulations of Petar I Petrovic, the man who united Montenegro in the 18th century and led them in the Battle of Krusi against a huge Turkish army to return victorious and pave the first path towards economic development.

Straw Bells

Vasyl Vilgota raised two sons. One of them died on the fronts of the Second World War, defending the homeland, and the second served as Hilfspolizei. Vilgota himself also helped the Nazis. Although he carefully hides this fact of his biography, there is one man who knows the truth about him.

A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa

During an interesting era in the history of Eastern Europe when Russia, under Peter the Great, and Sweden, under King Charles XII, struggled for power, Ukraine was the pawn in the middle. In 1709, Ivan Mazepa, Hetman of Ukraine, which was part of the Russian Empire, signed a pact with the Swedish king promising to support Sweden in its war against Russia provided that Ukraine was given its independence.

Mirgorod and Its Inhabitants

Based on the works of Nikolai Gogol - 'The Old World Landowners', 'The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich', 'Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt'.

To Remember