English entry

Vasya the Reformer (1926)

Research project: generative AI interpretation of a completely lost Ukrainian silent film — Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s debut at VUFKU (Odessa), co-directed with Favst Lopatynskyi.

Not a restoration of original film stock. No frames of the 1926 release survive. All stills on this site are AI-generated interpretations grounded in screenplay text, montage lists, production photos (where available), and period reviews.

Abstract

This paper presents the first attempt at AI-based visual reconstruction of the lost Ukrainian silent film “Vasya-Reformator” (Vasya the Reformer, 1926) — the debut work of renowned filmmaker Alexander Dovzhenko, co-directed with Favst Lopatynskyi at the Odessa Film Factory of VUFKU. The original film reel has been completely lost; only the literary screenplay, montage lists, production photographs, and contemporary reviews survive. Using generative AI models with carefully engineered prompts to achieve period-accurate visual style, we reconstruct 10 key scenes of the film based on systematic analysis of surviving archival sources. We propose a framework for AI-assisted reconstruction of lost cinematographic heritage that balances technological capability with historical integrity, while marking every image as interpretation rather than recovered cinema.

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