Controversial in creativity and life.Master of poetic cinema. One of the best directors who left an invaluable legacy to his descendants: original, spectacular, poetically elevated representing Ukraine and the events taking place in it.
Yuri Ilyenko (1936-2010) - People's ArtistOf Ukraine, academician of the Academy of Arts of Ukraine, screenwriter, cameraman, producer. “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” (1964) is one of four films that Yuri Gerasimovich made as an operator.
As director Yury Gerasimovich Ilyenko13 films were shot; some of them had a very difficult road to the audience. The debut film “The Well for the Thirsty” (“Krinitsa for Sprague”, 1965), based on the script of Drach Ivan Fedorovich, was his first directorial work. For the story about the extermination, the complete destruction of the Ukrainian village, the communist-minded leadership regarded the picture as anti-Soviet and banned for showing for more than two decades.
The second directorial work of Yuri Ilyenko, the allegorical history of Ukraine, was the film Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala (1968). By the will of those in power, he was also removed from the show and lay on the shelf for 20 years.
"White bird with a black mark" (1970) - the thirdforbidden to show work, positioned as the most harmful film ever made in Ukraine. The most unpleasant moment for the management of cinematography was the elimination as the main character not of a communist, but of a UPA warrior, Bandera. The ribbon, which won the Grand Prix of the Moscow International Festival and was honored by 6,000 spectators, fell into disgrace in its own country for many years. It could be seen in many countries of the world, but not in Ukraine. The projects of Yuri Gerasimovich were almost always banned, closed, trashed at the stage of the script; out of 42, only 7 scripts were screened.
The last directorial work of Yuri Ilyenko wasthe motion picture Prayer for Hetman Mazepa (2002), which also gained scandalous fame. In this picture, the director decided to debunk the myths and tell the truth about the massacre in the capital of Hetman Mazepa - Baturin, when 15 thousand people were killed at the behest of Prince Menshikov. It is not surprising that not a single skeleton was found at the excavations in Baturin: all the inhabitants were crucified, cut out, attached to rafts and set out along the waters of the Desna, the Sejm and the Dnieper in order to intimidate the others. The troops that followed Mazepa to join the Swedish king Karl were paralyzed with horror and turned away from the hetman, whose role was played by the colorful and powerful Bogdan Stupka. Participated in 2003 in the out-of-competition program of the International Film Festival in Berlin, this work was received quite coolly, forbidden for hire in Russia and Ukraine.
Yuri Ilyenko, whose biography is brightan example of unconditional love for Ukraine, was uncompromising, ideological, peremptory, stubborn maximalist. Extremely talented and gifted, haidamak hot, he was not afraid to overstep the bounds and create.
Yuri came to the cinema after studying at the camera department of VGIK, which he graduated in 1960. The camera debut took place in the same year in the film “Goodbye, pigeons,” directed by Jacob Segel.
Yuri Ilyenko was married twice.He lived for 18 years with actress Larisa Kadochnikova, whom he shot in the films “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”, “Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”. Then fate brought him to the Ukrainian actress Lyudmila Efimenko. The result of a successful union were two beautiful sons, Philip and Andrew. It was they who raised the father who was dying of a debilitating illness in order to have the last time to look at the wide and mighty Dnieper. On June 15, 2010, the great Ukrainian director Yuri Gerasimovich Ilyenko did not become. This is a big loss for the entire world cinema.
