Oleksandr Dovzhenko: Earth and Empire

Describing Oleksandr Petrovych Dovzhenko, Jonathan Rosenbaum called the Ukrainian “a pagan mystic whose masterful films look as wildly experimental, as dreamlike, as hysterically funny, as fiercely tragic, and as beautiful today as they did a century ago.” One of the towering figures of early Soviet cinema, alongside Eisenstein, Vertov, and Pudovkin, it could be argued that the influence of the nature-worshipping Dovzhenko is the strongest of all today; as a key reference point for Ukrainian poetic cinema and filmmakers including Andrei Tarkovsky and Terrence Malick, Dovzhenko casts a very long shadow indeed. Often at odds with Moscow for his reticence to work in the register of propaganda, Dovzhenko’s body of work is both deeply personal and swooningly lyrical, and from the career-defining films of the “Ukraine Trilogy” to Poem of the Sea, directed by Yuliya Solntseva from a screenplay by her late husband, we’ll be showcasing the transcendent best of it.

Co-organized with Razom

Theatrical licenses courtesy of Dovzhenko Center, Kyiv

Live Musical Accompaniment for the Silent Film Trilogy