Ukrainian Poetic Cinema

Ukrainian Poetic Cinema was a cinematic movement based in Soviet era Ukraine in the 1960s and 1970s. Films tended to focus on Ukrainian identity and folklore, and could be described as "folk modernism". The "peasant lyricism" of Soviet Montage director and Ukrainian native Olexander Dovzhenko is seen as an integral influence on the movement.

Films such as Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965) heavily broke the then-official Soviet policy of Socialist Realism and instead employed extravagant visual styles, together with experimental techniques and narratives. As a result, films of the movement were frequently seen as nationalist or anti-Russian by the rulers in Moscow, and thus often shelved or banned. Takflix offers a selection of 7 masterpieces of Ukrainian poetic cinema with English subtitles.