“Piat narechenykh” – Ukrainian Soviet silent black-and-white propaganda film. The film was completed in 1930, and it became one of the last works shot in Odesa by the All-Ukrainian Photo and Film Department (VUFKU). Petliura's troops are approaching a small town. The Jewish poor, intimidated by the rabbis, are waiting for a pogrom, some of the young people even run to the Red partisans. Petliura's detachment enters the town. The detachment commander orders the five most beautiful girls, dressed as brides, to be brought to him. Otherwise, he threatens, the Petliura's troops will kill everyone. The rabbi persuades the parents to agree. The girls are freed by the Red partisans.    

  “Kvartaly peredmistya” – a Ukrainian silent black-and-white feature film of the 1930s, directed by Grigori Griṭscher-Ṭscheriḳower based on a screenplay by Mykola Bazhan. The film tells the story of religious and bourgeois superstitions. Jewish girl Dora falls in love with a young Russian man, Vasyl. Her parents are categorically against it. Despite this, Dora still goes to Vasyl. But in his family, she encounters the same prejudices – this time from the boy's parents. In the end, Vasyl himself falls under the general family influence. The case reaches the public court, and there... Dora defends her husband. Her act makes an impression on Vasyl, he realizes his guilt before his wife, repents… “Kvartaly peredmistya” was one of the few Ukrainian Soviet films of the 1930s in which the main character was a woman. Dora must build her personal life on the site of active social fractures: young and traditional, proletarian and national, communal and private. A talented team worked on the creation of the film: a prominent director of Ukrainian Jewish cinema of the 1920s, Grigori Griṭscher-Ṭscheriḳower, a young writer and editor of the magazine “Kino” Mykola Bazhan, and one of the first cinematographers in Ukraine and Russia, Nikolay Kozlovsky. The film premiered on: June 20, 1930 in Kyiv.    

“Jewish Happiness” (also known as “Menakhem-Mendl”) is a 1925 Soviet silent feature film directed by Oleksiy Granovsky, based on the stories of Sholem Aleichem.   The film portrays the plight of the Jewish poor, confined by the Tsarist regime within the boundaries of the Pale of Settlement. The story revolves around Menakhem Mendl (one of Sholem Aleichem’s iconic characters), a dreamy entrepreneur constantly involved in doomed get-rich-quick schemes. Despite the oppression of Jews in Tsarist Russia, Mendl persists in pursuing his dreams. His relentless determination eventually transforms him from a hapless failure into a symbolic hero.

  “Benya Krik” (another name – “Benya Krik's Career”) – Ukrainian Soviet silent film of 1926 directed by Volodymyr Vilner based on “Odesa Stories” by Isaac Babel. Production of the first film factory of the VUFKU. Film story in six parts. “Benya Krik” – Isaac Babel's first significant work in cinema was an original film story based on “Odesa Stories.” The script was published as a separate book in 1926 and was republished in the late 1980s and early 1990s in collections of selected works by Isaac Babel. The film premiered on January 18, 1927, in Kyiv. Later, the film was banned.   Plot Benya Krik – Odesa bandit who causes a real commotion in the city when he releases many prisoners by setting fire to the prison. The criminals join his gang. When the Bolshevik coup of 1917 occurs, they pose as Red Army soldiers. The chaos they create is amazing. Revenge, politics, revelry and robbery vividly convey one of the components of that time.    

  L'khaim – silent black-and-white film made by the Moscow branch of the Pathé Brothers company, the Russian branch of the French film company “Pathe” of Charles and Emile Pathé, in 1910. The film survived without captions. A dramatic sketch of the life of a remote Jewish town, performed on the theme of the popular Jewish song “L'khaim”. The beautiful Rogel is pursued by many young men, but she is in love with Shlomo, a handsome young worker in the Mathes household. Rogel and Shlomo dream of marriage. But the girl is afraid to talk about this topic with her father – the old, gray-bearded Reb-Moishe, who is revered by the whole town. Matec, who has long been in love with Reb-Moishe's daughter, asks his father to marry him to Rochele. Matec' father starts a conversation about this topic with the venerable Moishe in the synagogue. The elderly decide to unite the fates of their children and have a proper wedding soon. For Rochele, this decision is the collapse of all hopes. She tells Shlomo what happened, and he suggests that she run away. But Rochele does not dare to go against her father's will and submits to religious traditions. And now more than a year has passed, and Shlomo comes to his beloved, who has already become a mother, and again begs her to leave with him. He sees a mature woman who has realized that neither marriage, nor wealth, nor the birth of a daughter have brought her happiness. And she decides to run away. In the empty apartment, her husband finds only a farewell note. He also loves Rogele, and grief breaks him, turning a respectable, contented man into a dirty, ragged drunkard who has almost lost his mind. Five years later, an elegant, fashionably dressed woman in a veil enters his shack with a broken table and a pile of dirty rags on the floor. She is with her child, a pretty girl of about six. It's Rogel. But the drunk Marec doesn't recognize her. Rogel, disguised as an ordinary traveler, asks him for water for the child, and when she leaves, she puts money and a note on the table. Matec finds the note only after the “stranger” has left. After reading, he covered his head with his hands, shaking with sobs, and then fell unconscious – his grief is indescribable… This unique, pre-revolutionary film clearly demonstrates some of the customs, rituals, and traditions of the Jewish people. For example, Kabbalat Shabbat is a solemn meeting on Saturday. It is shown that this holiday differs in many ways from other weekdays. The film also showed one of the stages of a Jewish wedding, the so-called “Plot”, in which the parents of the bride and groom firmly give each other their word that the wedding will take place. In addition, the viewer also could see the wedding ceremony itself - the rite of Nisuin, when the bride is led to the groom under the chuppah (canopy) to marry “according to the law of Moses and Israel.”