VUFKU 100 - Helping Ukraine's Film Archive
Donation protected
The Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre in Kyiv has an archive of international significance with an extensive collection of Ukrainian and foreign films which includes 7,000 feature films, documentaries, and animated films, as well as thousands of archival records from the history of Ukrainian cinema. Founded in 1994 the Dovzhenko Centre has a modern climate-controlled film vault, the only film copying laboratory in Ukraine, a film museum, a media library and a publishing department. It preserves, promotes, researches, and distributes the national film heritage in Ukraine and abroad. One of its main activities is the study and restoration of the film production of the All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration (VUFKU/ВУФКУ) which was founded 100 years ago in March 1922. VUFKU became one of the most successful film studios of the 1920s until it was forced to integrate into an all-Soviet film administration in 1930. Many of its leading figures were imprisoned or executed as Stalin suppressed the Ukrainian national revival in the 1930s. Ukraine and its culture are under attack again and the Centre's archive and work are in peril. Despite its important contribution to Ukrainian and world cinema the Centre has always been under-funded and the Russian invasion has left it unable to pay its staff, protect its unique archive, and continue to operate. Your generous contributions will help it to survive until this dreadful period is over.
Illustration shows part of the poster for 'Bread' directed by Mykola Shpykovskyi, a 1929 VUFKU film.
For obvious reasons the links below may not always work.
All donations will be passed on in full converted to Euros via Wise to reach the Dovzhenko Centre in Ukraine. This fundraising is supported by the Dovzhenko Centre.
Richard Bossons has worked with the Centre on research projects. He is an architect and camera historian living in Oxford [https://richardbossons.academia.edu]
Organizer
Richard Bossons
Organizer
England