Talent and consciousness: the path of director Yuriy Illienko

Yuriy Illienko is a Ukrainian screenwriter, film director, actor, cinematographer, and producer. He was one of the founders of Ukrainian poetic cinema. He became known for his work as a cinematographer in the internationally acclaimed film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.

Ilyenko made his directorial debut with The Well for the Thirsty, which was banned by the USSR, as were many of his subsequent films. His most famous films are Ivan Kupala Evening, White Bird with a Black Mark and The Legend of Princess Olga.

Biography

Yurii Ilienko was born on 9 May 1936 in Cherkasy to an engineer. He was a People’s Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1987) and an academician of the Academy of Arts of Ukraine (1996).

He graduated from the cinematography department of the VGIK (1960, class of A.V. Halperin). In 1960-1963, he worked as a director of photography at the Yalta Film Studio. Since 1964, he has worked as a cameraman and director at the O.P. Dovzhenko Kyiv Film Studio.
He made his debut as a cinematographer in the film Farewell, Doves (1960).

He was widely recognised for his cinematography after Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.

In 1965, he made his directorial debut with The Source for the Thirsty (1965). One of the director’s best films, A White Bird with a Black Mark (1971, main prize at the Moscow Film Festival), is distinguished by its Ukrainian national colour, spectacularity, picturesqueness, and poetic sublimity.

Yuriy Illienko is considered the leader of the school of Ukrainian poetic cinema. Other notable works of the master include: ‘The Feast of Baked Potatoes’, ’Forest Song. Mavka’ (prize of the All-Union Film Festival), “The Legend of Princess Olga”, ’Swan Lake. The Zone’.

Ilyenko is the author of librettos for ballets (Prometheus, Olga), a novel-screenplay Agasser. The Chronicle of the Second Coming of Christ’ (1994), and the monograph “Paradigm of Cinema” (1999).

He is the author of the documentary film about Sergei Parajanov ‘Parajanov. The Score of Christ in C Major’ (1994, Diploma of the Golden Knight International Film Festival, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia).

He headed the Department of Film Directing at the Kyiv State Institute of Film Directing.

Ilyenko’s most significant acting work was playing the lead role of Timofey Suverenev in the film Newton Street, House No. 1 (1963, Lenfilm). He also played the role of Gerasim in his own film Dreaming and Living (1973).

Personal life

The director’s first wife was actress Larisa Kadochnikova. His second wife was actress Lyudmila Efimenko, and they had two sons: Pylyp and Andriy.

Yurii Gerasymovych passed away on 15 June 2010 at his dacha in Prokhorivka, Cherkasy region. He was buried on 18 June.

We would like to remind you that an exhibition about the outstanding scenographer and artist Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov was held in Kyiv.