Directed by Ivan Mykolaichuk |100 mins | 1979
Having acted in several seminal Ukrainian films of the 1960s and ’70s, Ivan Mykolaichuk made his directorial debut with this work of fervid romanticism and rough-hewn beauty, set in the village of Babylon in the years after the revolution but before collectivization. Inspired by the naïve paintings of Ivan Generalić, Mykolaichuk’s since-canonized film—in which he appears in the key role of village philosopher Fabian—was completed in spite of a government crackdown on Ukrainian poetic cinema.