ABOUT

The Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre (Dovzhenko Centre) is the largest Ukrainian film archive with an extensive collection that includes 7,000 feature films, documentaries, Ukrainian and foreign animated films and thousands of archival records from the history of Ukrainian cinema.

Dovzhenko Centre was launched in 1994 based on the largest Soviet Ukrainian film printing factory (founded in 1948), and today it is one of the most dynamic cultural institutions in Ukraine that can boast a wide international representation in the film industry.

Dovzhenko Centre acts as an umbrella for a modern climate-controlled film vault, the only film printing laboratory in Ukraine, a Cinema Museum, a non-film archive, a multimedia library and a publishing department. It stores, promotes, researches and distributes the national film legacy in Ukraine and abroad.

In 2015 the industrial buildings of the centre were refurbished and turned into a public space. For that purpose, an art cluster was created, and now it unites some public initiatives in the field of modern art, namely theatre, music, and book publishing.

Thus, Dovzhenko Centre has become a popular platform for hosting concerts and performances.

The centre is the only member of the International Federation of Film Archives in Ukraine, and in its activities, it aims at applying best practices of such western film institutions as the British Film Institution, EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam, Cinémathèque Française, Filmoteca de Catalunya, etc.

The mission of Dovzhenko Centre is to develop a fresh approach to the conventional history of cinema and history as such, to research the transformation of the national memory, and study the reflection of the artistic and historical processes through cinema.

FILM FUND

The Film Fund was launched in 1996 when the vault and the buildings of the film printing factory in Vasylkivska street were obtained.

Dovzhenko Centre stores 60,283 film products (over 7,000 titles) including feature films, animated films, documentaries and popular science films mostly produced in Ukraine.

The oldest film in the vault is a nitrate film dating back to 1909 (fragments of an unknown foreign film).

The oldest Soviet Ukrainian feature film dates back to 1922.

NON-FILM ARCHIVE

The Non-Film Archive is a research unit of Dovzhenko Centre which focuses on the archive, research and programme activities and maintains communication with film festivals and the International Federation of Film Archives.

The unit researches Ukrainian cinema and audiovisual arts and makes them available through modern formats like TV shows, education, publishing and exhibition projects.

The Non-Film Archive collects, stores and processes documents on Ukrainian cinema and cultures; it has a collection of more than 7,000 archive materials and a library with over 4,000 publications.

FILM MUSEUM

The open industrial space of the FILM Museum is optimal for embodying ideas and performing experiments at the intersection of various media.

Together with the Non-Film Archive, Film Vault, and the Mediatheque, the Film Museum develops and presents a fresh approach to the conventional history of cinema and history as such, and at the Ukrainian cinema as a part of the global filmmaking process.

The Cinema Museum of Dovzhenko Centre was open on September 12th, 2019 with the research exhibition VUFKU. Lost&Found.

Today the museum is

an exhibition space with two halls of 678 and 352 square meters each;
a space for children where children’s events take place;
a lecture hall for 150 seats;
open and closed collection storages for museum objects.

FILM LABORATORY

Dovzhenko Centre has the only state film printing laboratory in Ukraine with a 60-year experience dating its history back to Kyiv Film Printing Factory.

At different times the first Soviet colour films such as Hrunya Kurnakova and Mikado Palace as well as panoramic and widescreen film copies for many countries in Europe, Asia and Africa were produced on the basis of the laboratory.

And since Ukraine gained its independence, such films of Ukrainian filmmakers as Mamay, A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa, Stolnya, The Effect of Immersion, At the River were cut and printed here.

Today, the film laboratory of Dovzhenko Centre provides services of printing and processing of colour and black-and-white films, producing and restoring of film copies, scanning and processing of digital materials.

MEDIATHEQUE

The Mediatheque of Dovzhenko Centre combines the physical and virtual spaces of Dovzhenko Centre.

It is an open resource for the research of cinema and screen arts, a platform for communication and work at the intersection of different art media, primarily cinema, photography and media art.

The Mediatheque aims to emphasize innovative approaches, the educational and research mission of Dovzhenko Centre, to promote its archive and film vault while also to create a cross-disciplinary environment for active interaction of researchers in the field of cinema and other audiovisual arts with artists, film industry representatives and a wider audience.

STAGE 6

Stage 6 is a multidisciplinary performance platform open for independent theatre collaboration.

Stage 6 provides event management services;

theatrical and dance performances, concerts, film screenings, conferences, seminars, and meet-the-artist events take place there.

The multifunctional concert hall-transformer with an area of 310 square meters is built as an amphitheater and can seat up to 309-329 people.

The stage has lighting and sound equipment and a wired network connection.

MUSEUM BOOK SHOP

The Museum Shop is a niche book space that presents Dovzhenko Centre’s research publications on Ukrainian cinema, its history, and development as well as art books and albums from Ukrainian publishers on contemporary art, photography, cinema, philosophy, sociology, theory, and history of culture.

The Museum Shop focuses on the research on Ukrainian art and fundamental texts dedicated to world art and visual culture.