Earth: screening

Earth is the most well-known Ukrainian film, recognized as a masterpiece of world cinema. This avant-garde film — revered in Ukraine after the death of its director, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, and banned only nine days after its release in cinemas, has inspired countless controversial interpretations. Replete with lyric pantheism and utopian exaltation, Earth comprehensively demonstrated the uncertainty of decision in the 1920s that culminated in tragic collectivisation.

Oleksandr Dovzhenko was perhaps the most brilliant, and simultaneously, most controversial figure in Ukrainian culture during the Soviet period. In his creative work he conceived a political and cultural project in Ukraine that was far from dogmatic communism; in this (in a sense avant-garde) project, he paradoxically combined Futurism, Traditionalism, Utopianism and Conservatism. Dovzhenko’s ability to think mythologically, and timelessly, all the while embracing entire historical epochs and associating them with his nation, makes him a figure of truly heroic stature.

This print was produced, and subtitled by the Dovzhenko Center. The musical score is written and performed by the band DakhaBrakha on the order of the Dovzhenko Center.

This screening is part of an educational program dedicated to Ukrainian cinema history in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute London.