Dziga Vertov

The film deals with intellectual activities which are usually hidden from the human eye. It concerns doing research in film archives, searching for missing films and bringing them back to life. It is a documentary about the work of Dziga Vertov, a prominent soviet director, and the restoration of the director’s original concept of the films Anniversary of the Revolution (1918), The History of the Civil War (1921), Man with a Movie Camera (1929).

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: A bet is placed on the outcome of the Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries / The verdict / People in streetcars and on the street / A crashed aircraft / Reconstruction of streetcar line 13 / Peacetime use of tanks – airport construction work.

“The Magic Beam” is a film essay woven together from newsreels and documentary material from different decades, fragments of hundreds of non-fiction and fiction Soviet films of the 1910s-1960s.

Documentary portrait of Dziga Vertov, father of documentary cinema.

The film "All the Vertovs" tells about the Kaufman brothers-David, Mikhail and Boris. All three are world-class filmmakers. Each of them managed to achieve the highest level of proficiency in the profession, each had their own vision of the world and the gift to embody it on the screen in a unique, deeply individual manner.

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

The building of Sevzapkino. Columns of demonstrators are moving along Bolshaya Dmitrovka, Dzerzhinsky square, Pushkinskaya (Strastnaya) square, Kamenny Most (The Big Stone Bridge) and Red Square. Decorated cars and trucks. This is a Military parade on Red Square. L.D. Trotsky, N.I. Muralov, S.S. Kamenev are among the commanders. The demonstrators are carrying the models of a boat, plane and globe. The theatrical march. The members of the government and guests including K. Tsetkin are watching from the tribunes. There are lots of planes on the airdrome and square. M.M. Litvinov, N.I. Rikov and others stand near the plane. The plane builds jp speed, soars in the air, leads for landing and lands. Hordes of people gathered at the aerodrome. Camera operator is shooting. The church on the corner of Ulitsa Myasnitskaya (Kirovskaya), the building of GUM (State Department Store) and Khamovnichesky (Frunzensky) Council. Illuminated building.

Follows the legendary female pilots Raskova, Osipenko, and Grisodubova in their failed but magnificent attempt to make the first nonstop trans-Siberian flight. Using documentary reenactments, Vertov depicts the flight, the crash, the rescue, and the women’s heroic return to Moscow, where crowds shower them with flowers, and leaders with speeches.

The epic story of the Russian Civil War (1918-21): the White Terror, the counterrevolutionary uprisings, the guerrilla war, the Kolchak front, the Wrangel front and the Kronstadt rebellion. Chaos and violence, devastation and death.

A chronicle of the Russian Revolution of 1917, from the bourgeois democratic February Revolution to the great socialist October Revolution and the final triumph.

This film shows the leaders of organizations that emerged after the Russian Revolution. It is the fragment of ‘Anniversary of the Revolution’ made by Vertov in 1918.

The Kino-nedelya newsreels constitute the first films of Dziga Vertov. A total of 43 issues, each containing an average of 5 to 7 different items, were produced between May 1918 and June 1919. In the fall of 1918, Vertov joined the newsreel’s ranks and soon took on full responsibility for the series, defining the content and structure of each issue. The films provide an invaluable record of life in the young Soviet Russia, then in the throes of civil war.

This documentary promoting the joys of life in a Soviet village centers on the activities of the Young Pioneers. These children are constantly busy, pasting propaganda posters on walls, distributing hand bills, exhorting all to "buy from the cooperative" as opposed to the Public Sector, promoting temperance, and helping poor widows. Experimental portions of the film, projected in reverse, feature the un-slaughtering of a bull and the un-baking of bread.

This documentary promoting the joys of life in a Soviet village centers on the activities of the Young Pioneers. These children are constantly busy, pasting propaganda posters on walls, distributing hand bills, exhorting all to "buy from the cooperative" as opposed to the Public Sector, promoting temperance, and helping poor widows. Experimental portions of the film, projected in reverse, feature the un-slaughtering of a bull and the un-baking of bread.

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries / Demonstrators carrying banners.

The first animated movie made in the Soviet Union, it portrays a bloated caricature of a Capitalist devouring a massive heap of food and drink.

The first animated movie made in the Soviet Union, it portrays a bloated caricature of a Capitalist devouring a massive heap of food and drink.

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Connecting city and country, south and north, summer and winter, peasant women and worker women / Emancipation of women in the USSR

An experimental sound film.

Traditional-style newsreel series (1923-1925)

The Kinonedelja (Kino-Week) newsreels represent Dziga Vertov's first contribution to cinema.

The Kinonedelja (Kino-Week) newsreels represent Dziga Vertov's first contribution to cinema.

The Kinonedelja (Kino-Week) newsreels represent Dziga Vertov's first contribution to cinema.

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: A peasant buys a receiver at the radio shop / Instructions to attach an antenna / A broadcast-station is developed / A concert is broadcast. Though only a third of this final issue of Kino-Pravda seems to survive, there still exists Aleksandr Bushkin’s time-lapse animation and the sequence in which, as Yuri Tsivian describes, “a cross-section of a photographically correct izba (Russian peasant’s log hut) is penetrated by schematically charted radio waves”—a testament to the magical properties and propagandistic uses of radio in reaching out to Russia’s distant peasantry.

A 1937 Soviet documentary film directed by Dziga Vertov. The film was shot to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution. It focuses on the women and the role of motherhood, featuring images from across the Soviet Union, in particular the Far East.

The Kinonedelja (Kino-Week) newsreels represent Dziga Vertov's first contribution to cinema.

The Kinonedelja (Kino-Week) newsreels represent Dziga Vertov's first contribution to cinema.

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: IV. Congress of the Comintern / Congress of the Profintern.