‘CINE-CONCERT Earth - Olexandr Dovjenko & live soundtrack Dakha Brakha’

Avant-garde Earth, a recognized cinema masterpiece, was banned 9 days after release and glorified in Ukraine only after Dovzhenko’s death, bringing forth dozens of controversial interpretations. Full of lyrical pantheism and utopianexaltation, it demonstrated the ambiguity of Ukrainian geopolitical choice in the 1920s. The new soundtrack for Earth was created by Ukrainian ethno-chaos band DakhaBrakha, whose music shifts the emphasis from the film’s ideological connotations to universal ones.

Olexandr Dovzhenko – biography

Olexandr Dovzhenko was born in 1894, in the hamlet of Viunyshche located in Chernigov Governorate, Russian Empire (now part of Sosnytsia town in Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine). Although his parents were uneducated, Dovzhenko's semi-literate grandfather encouraged him to study, leading him to become a teacher at the age of 19. In 1919 in Zhytomyr he was taken prisoner and sent to a concentration camp. After liberation he served as an assistant to the Ambassador in Warsaw as well as Berlin. Upon his return to USSR in 1923, he began illustrating books and drawing cartoons in Kharkiv.

Dovzhenko turned to film in 1926 when he settled in Odessa. His ambitious drive led to the production of his second-ever screenplay, Vasya the Reformer (which he also co-directed). He gained greater success with Zvenyhora in 1928 which established him as a major filmmaker of his era. His following "Ukraine Trilogy" (Zvenigora, Arsenal, and Earth), although underappreciated by some contemporary Soviet critics (who found some of its realism counter-revolutionary), is his most well-known work in the West.

He was a mentor to the young Soviet filmmakers Larisa Shepitko and Serhiy Paradzhanov. The Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kiev were named after him in his honour following his death.

Selected filmography: Zvenigora (1928), Arsenal (1928), Earth (1930)