Alexander Dovzhenko

Directing

Alexander Dovzhenko

Born 1894-09-10 · Viunyshche, Chernigov Governorate, Russian Empire [now part of Sosnytsia, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine]

Alexander Petrovich Dovzhenko, also Oleksandr Petrovych Dovzhenko (Russian: Александр Петрович Довженко, Ukrainian: Олександр Петрович Довженко; September 10 [O.S. August 29] 1894 – November 25, 1956), was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Ukrainian origin. He is often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers, alongside Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, and Vsevolod Pudovkin, as well as being a pioneer of Soviet montage theory. Although Alexander Dovzhenko's parents were uneducated, his semi-literate grandfather encouraged him to study, leading him to become a teacher at the age of 19. Dovzhenko turned to film in 1926 when he landed in Odesa. 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" (Zvenyhora, 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. For his film Shchors, Dovzhenko was awarded the Stalin Prize (1941); eight years later, in 1949, he was awarded another Stalin Prize for his film Michurin. After spending several years writing, co-writing and producing films at Mosfilm Studios in Moscow, he turned to writing novels. Over a 20-year career, Dovzhenko personally directed only 7 films. He was a mentor to the young Ukrainian Soviet filmmakers Larysa Shepitko and Sergei Parajanov. Dovzhenko died of a heart attack on November 25, 1956 in his dacha in Peredelkino. His wife, Yulia Solntseva, continued his legacy by producing films of her own and completing projects Dovzhenko was not able to create. The Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kyiv were named after him in his honour following his death.

Acting credits

Larisa poster
6.3

Elem Klimov's tribute to his late wife, director Larisa Shepitko, killed in a car accident a year earlier. Features excerpts from all of her films, and archival audio of her discussing life and art.

Larisa

1980

The Diplomatic Pouch poster
4.7

The Soviet embassy in England sends two couriers with diplomatic mail to Leningrad. The inspector of security police, White, and a group of policemen attack the Soviet diplomatic couriers at night. The documents get to an English trackman, who gives them to his son, a sailor in Portsmouth.

The Diplomatic Pouch

1927

Triumph Over Violence poster
7.5

Romm pulls out all the stops in its selection of documentary material to draw the viewer not only into absolute horror about fascism and nazism in the 1920s–1940s Europe, but also to a firm conviction that nothing of the sort should be allowed to happen again anywhere in the world.

Triumph Over Violence

1965

Dovzhenko. Ukrainian Homer of Cinema poster
NR

An inspiring portrait of Dovzhenko, one of the greatest film directors, known as Homer of Cinema. The film features Sergei Trimbach, Oleksandr Muratov, Vyacheslav Bihun, Raisa Prokopenko, and Peter Simms.

Dovzhenko. Ukrainian Homer of Cinema

2013

Dovzhenko. Full of Compromise poster
NR

This film, marking the 130th anniversary of Oleksandr Dovzhenko's birth, reveals the artist's controversial path—from his first attempts at cinema to the creation of masterpieces that became symbols of Ukrainian poetic cinema. The authors show his ability to maneuver between creative ambitions and the political demands of the era, remaining a unique figure in cultural history. 

Dovzhenko. Full of Compromise

2025

Dovzhenko. Diary. 1941-1945 poster
NR

An outstanding poet, student of Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Mykola Vinhranovsky reads excerpts from his teacher's diary, comments on it - thereby emphasizing the tragic fate of the great artist. The film uses a chronicle of the war and post-war years.

Dovzhenko. Diary. 1941-1945

1992

Sonata about the artist poster
NR

The film is about Ivan Honchar, an ardent collector of Ukrainian antiquities, who turned his Kyiv apartment into a unique museum.

Sonata about the artist

1966

How The Steel Was Tempered - On Screen and In Life poster
NR

How the film was made, how the events described in the film actually happened, about Nikolai Ostrovsky and much more.

How The Steel Was Tempered - On Screen and In Life

2007

Oleksandr Dovzhenko. Odesa Dawn poster
NR

Oleksandr Dovzhenko shot his first films while living in Odesa. Contemporary renowned filmmakers comment on this period of Dovzhenko's creative work. Reconstructions of moments from the great master's creative explorations immerse the viewer in the atmosphere of film production in the 1920s. Footage from films of the 1920s is used.

Oleksandr Dovzhenko. Odesa Dawn

2014

No artwork available
NR

The short film is dedicated to the outstanding Ukrainian film director. The video features archival footage in which writers Vasyl Chekhon, Viktor Shklovsky, and Armenian film director Levon Isakyan share their memories of Oleksandr Dovzhenko. It includes excerpts from Dovzhenko's films, archival photographs, and footage of memorable places in Armenia.

Oleksandr Dovzhenko in Memories

2004

Oleksandr Dovzhenko. The Contemplations After Life poster
NR

We hear readings from Dovzhenko's diary and hear how the great suffering of the Ukrainian people caused him to move away from beauty for it's own sake to the search for truth, expressed in his two harrowing wartime documentaries. Stalin's 1944 banning of Dovzhenko's Ukraine in Flames screenplay and his subsequent exile to Moscow affected him greatly.

Oleksandr Dovzhenko. The Contemplations After Life

1992

Our Cinema poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Our Cinema

1940

Behind the camera

Liberation poster
6.5

Wartime documentary by Dovzhenko and Solntseva.

Liberation

1940

Liberation poster
6.5

Wartime documentary by Dovzhenko and Solntseva.

Liberation

1940

Arsenal poster
6.7

A soldier returns to Kyiv after surviving a train crash and encounters clashes between nationalists and collectivists. The story of the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising at the Arsenal factory in Kyiv by the Central Council troops.

Arsenal

1929

Arsenal poster
6.7

A soldier returns to Kyiv after surviving a train crash and encounters clashes between nationalists and collectivists. The story of the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising at the Arsenal factory in Kyiv by the Central Council troops.

Arsenal

1929

Arsenal poster
6.7

A soldier returns to Kyiv after surviving a train crash and encounters clashes between nationalists and collectivists. The story of the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising at the Arsenal factory in Kyiv by the Central Council troops.

Arsenal

1929

Earth poster
6.7

During the agrarian collectivization process in the Soviet Union, Vasyl, a peasant member of the youth division of the Communist Party, gets a tractor with the help of a local party organization and plows private boundaries on kulak fields. However, this enthusiasm will cost him dearly.

Earth

1930

Earth poster
6.7

During the agrarian collectivization process in the Soviet Union, Vasyl, a peasant member of the youth division of the Communist Party, gets a tractor with the help of a local party organization and plows private boundaries on kulak fields. However, this enthusiasm will cost him dearly.

Earth

1930

Vasya, the Reformer poster
7.0

Lost film directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko (his first film) and Favst Lopatynskyi. It is a satire of the NEP period. Vasia, the son of a factory’s worker, is attracted by the romance of adventures. And he goes to look for them. He saves a drowning drunkard who tries to beat him. Vasia escapes from him in a vehicle parked on the shore. However, the vehicle belongs to a superintendent who, when he does not find it, stages its theft. Meanwhile, Vasia exposes priests in the church. As a result, the church is turned into a cinema, and the priest becomes a cinema technician. And finally, Vasia’s last deed is catching a criminal at home and denouncing him to the militia.

Vasya, the Reformer

1926

Vasya, the Reformer poster
7.0

Lost film directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko (his first film) and Favst Lopatynskyi. It is a satire of the NEP period. Vasia, the son of a factory’s worker, is attracted by the romance of adventures. And he goes to look for them. He saves a drowning drunkard who tries to beat him. Vasia escapes from him in a vehicle parked on the shore. However, the vehicle belongs to a superintendent who, when he does not find it, stages its theft. Meanwhile, Vasia exposes priests in the church. As a result, the church is turned into a cinema, and the priest becomes a cinema technician. And finally, Vasia’s last deed is catching a criminal at home and denouncing him to the militia.

Vasya, the Reformer

1926

The Diplomatic Pouch poster
4.7

The Soviet embassy in England sends two couriers with diplomatic mail to Leningrad. The inspector of security police, White, and a group of policemen attack the Soviet diplomatic couriers at night. The documents get to an English trackman, who gives them to his son, a sailor in Portsmouth.

The Diplomatic Pouch

1927

The Diplomatic Pouch poster
4.7

The Soviet embassy in England sends two couriers with diplomatic mail to Leningrad. The inspector of security police, White, and a group of policemen attack the Soviet diplomatic couriers at night. The documents get to an English trackman, who gives them to his son, a sailor in Portsmouth.

The Diplomatic Pouch

1927

The Diplomatic Pouch poster
4.7

The Soviet embassy in England sends two couriers with diplomatic mail to Leningrad. The inspector of security police, White, and a group of policemen attack the Soviet diplomatic couriers at night. The documents get to an English trackman, who gives them to his son, a sailor in Portsmouth.

The Diplomatic Pouch

1927

Aerograd poster
5.0

A Russian outpost in Eastern Siberia comes under threat of attack by the Japanese. Aerograd is a new town with a strategically located airfield of vital interest to the government. Work on the new outpost is complicated when tensions develop between workers and a religious sect. Relations between the two countries are further strained in the days before World War II, dating back to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

Aerograd

1935

Aerograd poster
5.0

A Russian outpost in Eastern Siberia comes under threat of attack by the Japanese. Aerograd is a new town with a strategically located airfield of vital interest to the government. Work on the new outpost is complicated when tensions develop between workers and a religious sect. Relations between the two countries are further strained in the days before World War II, dating back to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

Aerograd

1935

Ivan poster
4.8

A young farmer Ivan and his lazy father Stepan try to help with the construction of the Dniprohes, but he learns that strength is not enough for a worker and joins the Communist party.

Ivan

1932

Ivan poster
4.8

A young farmer Ivan and his lazy father Stepan try to help with the construction of the Dniprohes, but he learns that strength is not enough for a worker and joins the Communist party.

Ivan

1932

Victory in Soviet Ukraine poster
5.3

A wartime documentary directed by Alexander Dovzhenko and Yuliya Solntseva, depicting the final campaigns that drove Nazi forces from Ukraine in 1944–45. Combining frontline footage, liberated cityscapes, and scenes of returning civilians, the film chronicles both the devastation of occupation and the triumph of Soviet arms. It stands as both a historical record of the Ukrainian front and a patriotic celebration of victory at the close of the Second World War.

Victory in Soviet Ukraine

1945

Victory in Soviet Ukraine poster
5.3

A wartime documentary directed by Alexander Dovzhenko and Yuliya Solntseva, depicting the final campaigns that drove Nazi forces from Ukraine in 1944–45. Combining frontline footage, liberated cityscapes, and scenes of returning civilians, the film chronicles both the devastation of occupation and the triumph of Soviet arms. It stands as both a historical record of the Ukrainian front and a patriotic celebration of victory at the close of the Second World War.

Victory in Soviet Ukraine

1945

Michurin poster
5.6

About the life of the Russian biologist Ivan Michurin. 1912 year. Having rejected American offers to work abroad, Michurin continues his research in the Russian Empire, despite the fact that his ideas are not perceived by the tsarist government, the church and idealistic science. Michurin is supported by prominent scientists of the country and he continues to work hard. After the October Revolution, a small Michurin garden in the city of Kozlov (the biologist's homeland) becomes a large state nursery.

Michurin

1949

Michurin poster
5.6

About the life of the Russian biologist Ivan Michurin. 1912 year. Having rejected American offers to work abroad, Michurin continues his research in the Russian Empire, despite the fact that his ideas are not perceived by the tsarist government, the church and idealistic science. Michurin is supported by prominent scientists of the country and he continues to work hard. After the October Revolution, a small Michurin garden in the city of Kozlov (the biologist's homeland) becomes a large state nursery.

Michurin

1949

Dovzhenko. Diary. 1941-1945 poster
NR

An outstanding poet, student of Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Mykola Vinhranovsky reads excerpts from his teacher's diary, comments on it - thereby emphasizing the tragic fate of the great artist. The film uses a chronicle of the war and post-war years.

Dovzhenko. Diary. 1941-1945

1992

Ukraine in Flames poster
5.6

A 1943 Soviet war propaganda film by Ukrainian director Oleksandr Dovzhenko and Yuliya Solntseva. It is Dovzhenko's second World War II documentary, and dealt with the Battle of Kharkiv. The film incorporates German footage of the invasion of Ukraine, which was later captured by the Soviets.

Ukraine in Flames

1943

Ukraine in Flames poster
5.6

A 1943 Soviet war propaganda film by Ukrainian director Oleksandr Dovzhenko and Yuliya Solntseva. It is Dovzhenko's second World War II documentary, and dealt with the Battle of Kharkiv. The film incorporates German footage of the invasion of Ukraine, which was later captured by the Soviets.

Ukraine in Flames

1943

Love's Berries poster
5.0

Jean, the hairdresser, is flabbergasted: what is that baby his girlfriend Lisa has put in his arms out of the blue? The fruit of love? Out of the question. From that moment on, the reluctant father has but one thought in his head: he must get rid of the cumbersome 'article'. And, take his word for it, all the ways are good.

Love's Berries

1926