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[EARLY SOVIET PROPAGANDA DOCUMENTARY MOVIES] Politiko-prosvetitel’naia i dokumental’naia fil’ma [i.e. Politically Enlightening and Documentary Film]

Item #2698

Moscow: Teakinopechat’, 1929. 54, [2] pp. 18 × 27,5 cm. In original printed wrappers with elementary geometric design. Contemporary owner’s pencil mark on the front wrapper. Stains occasionally, tears and losses of the spine, otherwise very good.

One of 8,000 copies.
In this album 48 movies are presented: all of them are non-fiction films, produced by the studios of Sovkino, VUFKU and Goskinprom. The said films were receiving less attention from the cinematic community, but were shown broadly in the cinemas as well as in clubs, on factories etc - they were an important part of the visual propaganda aimed at the New Soviet person, one of his/her main sources of getting to know USSR. Of those 48 movies in the album at least half are not survived to this day, about the others information is very sketchy. The preface ti the album is written by Kirill Shutko (1881—1941) - chairman of the Board of the Kinopechat Publishing House, Editor-in-Chief of the Kino newspaper (1925), Kino-Gazeta, and the Sovetsky Ekran magazine (1925), director of the Kulturfilm film studio, he is best known for securing the release of Kazimir Malevich in 1927, after he was arrested. In the preface Shutko also complains about the lack of understanding from the studios about the importance of non-fiction movies and calls to promote them broader. The list of movies showcased in the album: Soviet Chronicle, The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty, The Great Way, The Era of Nicholas II and Tolstoy, Step on, Council, A Sixth Part of the World, The Eleventh, A Man with a Movie Camera, Across Europe, In the Country of Lenin, Oil, The Gates of the Caucasus, The Country of Nachkho, The Roof of the World, The Heart of Asia Afghanistan, Shanghai Document, The Great Flight, The Footstool of Death, Forest People, Through the Wilds of the Ussuri Region, Turksib, Altai, A Feat in the Ice, Into the Taiga for Meteorites, Turkmenistan, The Country of Chuvashia, The Great Northern Route On the Rise, Along the Lenin Path, For the Harvest, Solovki, Along the Kuban, From Seeds to Soap, Moscow Region Museums - Estates, Soviet Moscow, Moscow, A Day in the City Nursery, The Problem of Nutrition, The Fight for Health, All-Union Spartakiad, Alcohol, Mechanics of the Brain, The Mystery of Life, Love in Nature, How Do You Live, Tanks, Chemical Weapons, Physical Training of a Fighter, Save Millions, Ten Years of TsAGI. Montage of film stills was produced by artist Mikhail Nirod.

Only copy is located in MoMA, according to Worldcat.

Status: On Hold