Also known as: Hryhorii Hrycher, Григорій Гричер, Grigori Gritscher-Tscherikower
Biography
Hryhorii Hrycher (also Cherikover; born Hryhorii Chervynskii) was a Ukrainian film director and screenwriter. His remaining films preserve a unique glimpse of a lost world, showing everyday life of Jewish small towns (shtetls) and neighborhoods in Ukraine in the times of massive political change.
Hryhorii Chervynskii was born in Poltava in 1898, in a worker’s family. He received his education in Poltava, Kyiv and Moscow before starting a career in movies in 1924-1925, at VUFKU Studios. Hrycher’s first project was Oleksii Hranovskii’s «Jewish Happiness,» to which he co-wrote a screenplay. Two years later, Hrycher makes his directing debut with a spy comedy «Suspicious Luggage». It is considered lost, same as most of his subsequent VUFKU productions: «Wandering Stars» (1926, after Sholem Aleichem, screenplay by Isaac Babel), «The Fair at Sorochyntsi» (1927, after Nikolai Gogol), «On the Eve» (1929, after Aleksandr Kuprin, starring Amvrosii Buchma).
