Mikhail Kaufman

Directing

Mikhail Kaufman

Born September 5, 1897 · Bialystok, Grodno Province, Russian Empire (now Poland)

Died November 3, 1980 · aged 83

Mikhail Kaufman was a Soviet cinematographer and photographer. In the 1920s, after Mikhail Kaufman returned from the Russian Civil War, his brother director Dziga Vertov offered him the opportunity to participate in his newsreel series Kino-Pravda as a cameraman. Kaufman directed photography for several films, including Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera. The film is built around meta-reference a…

Known For

Man with a Movie CameraMan with a Movie Camera · 1929
Man with a Movie Camera
7.81929
MovieDocumentary
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
Kino EyeKino Eye · 1924
Kino Eye
6.71924
MovieDocumentary
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.
Kino-Pravda No. 8Kino-Pravda No. 8 · 1922
Kino-Pravda No. 8
5.81922
MovieDocumentary
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.
Kino-Pravda No. 18: A Movie-Camera Race Over 299 Metres and 14 Minutes and 50 Seconds in the Direction of Soviet RealityKino-Pravda No. 18: A Movie-Camera Race Over 299 Metres and 14 Minutes and 50 Seconds in the Direction of Soviet Reality · 1924
Kino-Pravda No. 18: A Movie-Camera Race Over 299 Metres and 14 Minutes and 50 Seconds in the Direction of Soviet Reality
5.91924
MovieDocumentary
Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Up the Eiffel Tower in Paris / Moscow / Auto race Petrograd – Moscow / Aspects of everyday Soviet life / Peasant from Jaroslavl' visiting Moscow / Ceremonial introduction of a newborn into a workers' collective
Kino-Pravda No. 15Kino-Pravda No. 15 · 1923
Kino-Pravda No. 15
5.01923
MovieDocumentary
Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Against war / Against Gods / Education / Agitation / Sports and gymnastics / Danger of war.
Kino-Pravda No. 20: Pioneer PravdaKino-Pravda No. 20: Pioneer Pravda · 1924
Kino-Pravda No. 20: Pioneer Pravda
5.31924
MovieDocumentary
Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Reports of the Pioneers: Excursion to the country, to the zoo etc.
A Sixth Part of the WorldA Sixth Part of the World · 1926
A Sixth Part of the World
6.61926
MovieDocumentary
Through the travelogue format, it depicts the multitude of Soviet peoples in remote areas of USSR and details the entirety of the wealth of the Soviet land. Focusing on cultural and economic diversity, the film is in fact a call for unification in order to build a "complete socialist society".
Kino-Pravda No. 23: Radio PravdaKino-Pravda No. 23: Radio Pravda · 1925
Kino-Pravda No. 23: Radio Pravda
5.41925
MovieDocumentary
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.

Filmography

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