Dziga Vertov

Biography

Dziga Vertov (born David Abelevich Kaufman) was a Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsreel director, as well as a cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the cinéma vérité style of documentary movie-making and the Dziga Vertov Group, a radical film-making cooperative which was active from 1968 to 1972. The independent, exploratory style of Vertov influenced and inspired many filmmakers and directors. The Dziga Vertov Group borrowed his name. In 1960, Jean Rouch used Vertov's filming theory when making Chronicle of a Summer. His partner Edgar Morin coined Cinéma vérité term when describing the style, using direct translation of Vertov’s KinoPravda. The Free Cinema movement in the United Kingdom during the 1950s, the Direct Cinema in North America in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the Candid Eye series in Canada in the 1950s, all essentially owed a debt to Vertov. In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, critics voted Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929) the 8th best film ever made.

Directed

1. Man with a Movie Camera (1929) — Director
2. Kino Eye (1924) — Director
3. Enthusiasm. Symphony of Donbas (1930) — Director
4. Three Songs About Lenin (1934) — Director
5. A Sixth Part of the World (1926) — Director
6. Soviet Toys (1924) — Director
7. Kino-Pravda No. 1 (1922) — Director
8. The Eleventh Year (1928) — Director
9. Kino-Pravda No. 21: Lenin Kino-Pravda. A Film Poem About Lenin (1925) — Director
10. Kino-Pravda No. 17 (1923) — Director
11. Stride, Soviet! (1926) — Director
12. Kino-Pravda No. 19: A Movie-Camera Race Moscow – Arctic Ocean (1924) — Director
13. Kino-Pravda No. 3 (1922) — Director
14. Kino-Pravda No. 4 (1922) — Director
15. Kino-Pravda No. 18: A Movie-Camera Race Over 299 Metres and 14 Minutes and 50 Seconds in the Direction of Soviet Reality (1924) — Director
16. Kino-Pravda No. 5 (1922) — Director
17. Kino-Pravda No. 20: Pioneer Pravda (1924) — Director
18. Kino-Pravda No. 22: Lenin Is Alive in the Heart of the Peasant. A Film Story (1925) — Director
19. Kino-Pravda No. 15 (1923) — Director
20. Kino-Pravda No. 23: Radio Pravda (1925) — Director
21. Kino-Pravda No. 6 (1922) — Director
22. Kino-Pravda No. 2 (1922) — Director
23. Kino-Pravda No. 13: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. A Film Poem Dedicated to the October Revolution (1922) — Director
24. Kino-Pravda No. 16: Spring Pravda. A Lyrical View Newsreel (1923) — Director
25. Anniversary of the Revolution (1918) — Director
26. Kino-Pravda No. 7 (1922) — Director
27. Kino-Pravda No. 8 (1922) — Director
28. Kino-Pravda No. 9 (1922) — Director
29. Kino-Pravda No. 10 (1922) — Director
30. Kino-Pravda No. 11 (1922) — Director
31. Kino-Pravda No. 14 (1923) — Director
32. Kino-week (1918) — Director
33. Lullaby (1937) — Director
34. First May in Moscow (1923) — Director
35. The History of the Civil War (1921) — Director
36. Kino-Pravda No. 12 (1922) — Director
37. The Brain of Soviet Russia (1919) — Director
38. In Memory of Sergo Ordzhonikidze (1937) — Director
39. The Exposure of the Relics of Sergius of Radonezh (1919) — Director
40. For You at the Front! (1942) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Kino-Pravda No. 8 (1922)
2. The Return of Vertov (2024) — Self (archive footage)
3. All Vertovs (2002) — (archive footage)
4. World Without a Game (1966) — Self (archive footage)
5. The Magic Beam (1963) — Self (archive footage)