The collection comprises thirty-six films shot between 1970 and 1987 on 16 mm film by members of the Rivne-based amateur film studio "Horyn", founded by director Vasyl Sydorovych Riabunets in the town of Stara Vyzhva in the Volyn region. A 25-time winner of the All-Union Festivals of Artistic Creativity, he brought together other creators: Anatolii Dats'kov, Oleksandr Lunin, Volodymyr Kovalchuk and Ivan Apchuk.
The studio's body of work includes films that explore themes of preserving cultural, historical and natural heritage through the lenses of folklore and ethnography, social issues, and artistic documentary cinema.
Most of the studio's films are, in fact, the result of ethnographic expeditions across the Rivne region, as they depict folk trades and crafts, calendar customs and rituals, local musical folklore, everyday life, and the traditional clothing of the region's inhabitants. Films dedicated to nature, legends and the history of local communities documented the ecosystems and landscapes of Polissia.
Given the Soviet censorship of the 1970s and the restrictions imposed by the Communist Party system, artists had to conform to socialist narratives to secure financial support and opportunities for creative self-expression. Consequently, in these films, the life of a Polissia village—its traditions, rituals, and folk crafts—is often artificially linked to the new social roles of folk artists within Soviet reality. Thus, local colour and distinctiveness are pushed into the background, becoming a form of leisure for villagers after they have fulfilled their collective farm quotas. Similarly, in some of the films that represent Vasyl Ryabunets's personal perspective on the work of Ulas Samchuk ("Where does that river come from..."), Volodymyr Korolenko ("Amidst the Ruins"), and Oleksandr Kuprin's ("Footsteps of a legend"), whose lives or literary output were linked to Volhynia, literary excerpts are superimposed onto contemporary footage intended to highlight the improved standard of living and childhood that residents enjoy thanks to Soviet rule.
Some of the films produced by the "Horyn" film studio document ensembles and exhibitions of historical, architectural and museum monuments in the Rivne region: Ostroh and Korets castles, and the "Cossack Graves" museum-reserve.
The rest of the collection consists of 'party-approved' films about the exploits of the Soviet Army in the Second World War, the 'friendship of peoples', the self-sacrifice of collective farm workers, and commemorative events held in their honour.
The film collection also features experimental films made using stop-motion and plasticine animation techniques. One such film was created by members of the "Svitanok" children's film studio. Perhaps the only film in the collection to take a critical look at Soviet realities and everyday life is an animated film about commodity shortages ("Gift").
The collection includes footage from the following towns and cities: Rivne, Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Peresopnytsia, Korets, Ostroh, Berestechko, Kyzyl and Sayany.
The films were submitted for digitisation by the Rivne Regional Local History Museum as part of the project "Safeguarding Ukrainian Heritage of Amateur Films and Home Movies", implemented with the support of the Modern Endangered Archives Program.
