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The first film screening in Ukraine took place in Kyiv less than a year after the first film screening by the Lumiere brothers, on December 13, 1896. It took place in the Bergonier Theater (now the Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Drama Theater). During the screening, the audience was shown the famous Lumiere films “Arrival of the Train,” “The Dancing Ballerina,” and “The Watering Can.”
For Jewish towns, cinema became a real window on the world. Thanks to the efforts of thousands of energetic people, film screenings soon moved from poorly adapted premises to illusions, and by 1911 all towns with a population of 5,000–7,000 could boast of them.
Serhiy Frenkel was one of the first film distributors in Ukraine. He received higher technical education in Belgium, organized a Joint-Stock Cinematographic Company in Kyiv, participated in the creation of the Lucifer film studio, as well as the Ekran office, which purchased films about Jewish life for distribution. In Katerynoslav (now Dnipro), the Coliseum (1,000-seat) and Blitz cinemas were owned by Isai Spektor.
In 1912, the Kharkiv film distributor Dmytro Kharitonov released the first film on the theme of Jewish life, “Over the Ocean” (based on the play by Y. Gordin), shot at a local film studio. The works of other popular Jewish authors were also filmed – S. Asha, S. Yushkevych, B. Tomashevsky. Films “voiced” in Yiddish by actors hiding behind the screen were particularly successful.
Regular production of films on Jewish history was established in Odessa. In 1912, two film studios were engaged in their production. The founder of one of them, Myron Grossman, had completed an internship in France, and since 1907 he had been filming Odessa chronicles for local cinemas. Having organized the Mirograph film studio, he moved the filming to his dacha, building a glass pavilion there. At this address – 16 Frantsuzkiy Boulevard – the Odesa film studio is still located. As the chief cameraman, Grossman participated in a film expedition organized by the Mizrah society to shoot the film “Jewish Life in Palestine”. To circumvent censorship, this large-scale documentary (it was twice as long as a typical commercial melodrama) was called a species film. Biblical landscapes and the graves of the forefathers were combined in it with plots showing the lives of young Jewish settlers.
The infamous “Beilis affair” was also reflected in the cinema of the time. Based on the materials of a private investigation, a chronicle film was shot for the Kyiv cinema “Express” by Y. Shantser. In 1912, it was shown at closed screenings and abroad. Another similar film – produced by the Pathé brothers – was released in 1913, after the trial was over, and was soon banned. The director of the Solovtsov Theater, Joseph Soifer, created the feature film “The Secrets of Kyiv, or the Trial of Beilis.”
The events of World War I, in particular the accusations of Jews of espionage and treason, their mass eviction from the front line, were reflected in the film by the “Mizrah” studio, “War and the Jews” (also known as “The Heroic Deed of the Intelligence Officer Chaim Scheidelman”). The script for it was written by Isaac Teneromo, a famous publicist, writer, and screenwriter.
After the Bolsheviks came to power, censorship was introduced in the summer of 1918, and by the fall of 1919, almost two-thirds of private cinemas had been nationalized. Unable to defend their rights, most owners of film companies, distribution offices, and cinemas had to emigrate. J. Soifer made several films commissioned by the People's Commissariat of Education of Ukraine. In the early 1920s, he went on a business trip abroad and did not return. Soon new Soviet films about Jews appeared.
An illustrative example is the film “Jewish Happiness”, released in 1925. The film's director – Oleksiy Granovskyi, production designer – Nathan Altman. The film's script was based on the series of short stories by Sholem Aleichem “Menachem-Mendl”, and the author of the credits was Isaac Babel. The filming process was preceded by heated debates about the location of the shooting. On the occasion, Nathan Altman suggested his hometown of Vinnytsia, specifically the authentic district of “Yerusalimka”. At that time, “Yerusalimka” was one of the few districts where the original appearance of the town from the time of Sholem Aleichem was preserved. The film highlighted the life of a typical Jewish settlement beyond the settlement limit. The main character is a touching man who tries to get out of poverty by all possible means, fails, but, despite everything, sincerely believes in success. The roles were performed by leading actors of the Jewish Chamber Theater (GOSET). The main role (Menachem-Mendl) belonged to Solomon Mikhoels. The secondary roles were performed by: Tamara Adelheim, Moisey Goldblatt, Alexander Epstein, Lyubov Rom.
Among the Jewish actors of that time, it is worth mentioning Alexander Granach (1890–1945). He was born in the Verbivtsi village in the Ivano-Frankivsk region and became famous as a Hollywood actor. In Lviv, together with his brother, he first visited the Jewish theater, after which he decided to become an actor. At the age of 16 he moved to Berlin. In 1920, he made his debut as a silent film actor in the film “Love Came from the Gypsies...”. He was particularly successful in the films “Nosferatu. Symphony of Horror” and “Lucrezia Borgia”. After the National Socialists came to power in Germany, he moved to the USSR, where he played two leading roles in cinema – the gypsy leader Danylo in “The Last Camp” and the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party Georgi Dimitrov (“The Fighters”). In 1936, he was arrested in Kyiv on charges of espionage. He was saved from the Gulag thanks to the intervention of the writer Leon Feuchtwanger. In the spring of 1938, he emigrated to the United States. There, having learned English, he began working in Hollywood. Thanks to the role of KGB agent Kopalsky in the famous film “Ninochka” (1939), he became a world-class movie star.
For more than 40 years, the Jewish theme was practically not presented in Soviet cinema, films were not made, and those that were created were not remembered. Thus, Jewish cinema, with all its thematic and artistic features, shared the tragic fate of Yiddish culture.
Jewish themes, particularly the events of the Holocaust, have found their reflection in modern Ukrainian cinema, particularly in documentary filmmaking. First, it is worth mentioning the documentary film directed by Serhiy Bukovsky “Spell Your Name” (2006). The film was based on video interviews collected by the Shoah Foundation, an American visual history foundation founded by director Steven Spielberg. The movie highlights the stories of people who survived the events of 1941–1942. It is one of the first Ukrainian full-length documentaries about the events of the Holocaust in Ukraine.
The events of the Catastrophe are also reflected in the following documentaries: “Women from Babyn Yar Street” by Volodymyr Georgienko, “Babyn Yar – in Search of Memory” by Rafael Nakhmanovych.
Sources: Jewish Art Pages of Ukraine: A Study Guide for Lyceum Students. Compiled by Natalia Ryndiuk, Natalia Bakulina, and Anna Umanska. Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2018. 256 pages.