David Abelevich Kaufman, also known as Dziga (a Ukrainian phrase meaning whirling top) Vertov was born in 1896 into a Jewish book-dealer’s family in Białystok, Russian Empire, now modern-day Poland. Despite being known for his widely celebrated and pioneering 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera—a visually dynamic snapshot of urban life in various Ukrainian cities—until recently it’s been impossible to fully measure Vertov’s achievements, as his ambitious 1918 debut, Anniversary of the Revolution, a compilation film that stands as the first feature-length documentary ever made, was believed to be lost. Released in several Russian cities on November 7, 1918, the 119-minute compilation of 3000 meters of newsreels for the first anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution depicts the period from the bourgeois February Revolution in 1917 to the beginning of the Civil War in 1918. The film’s 30 positive prints circulated the Russian Soviet Republic on so-called October Revolution agitational trains...
- 2/8/2022
- MUBI
Above: JokerWas it really that big a surprise—for some even a sensation—that the main awards of the 76ª Mostra internazionale d'arte cinematografica di Venezia went to Todd Phillips' Joker (Golden Lion) and Roman Polański's An Officer and a Spy (Grand Jury Prize)? For weren't these the films most talked about before—and among the most widely discussed cum (mainly) celebrated during the festival proper? This was arguably one of the better jury decisions in years, a decision decidedly in favor of cinema as an art for and of the masses with the potential of making serious amounts of people ponder, maybe look differently at what they thought and believed (in) so far—though film did not have all the answers.Besides: This pair perfectly sums up the main themes and concerns addressed in the competition as well as some of the outstanding films to be found in the...
- 11/17/2019
- MUBI
© Universal PicturesThe opening film of major film festivals can usually be counted on to be two closely connected things. The first is that the film is intended to fulfill a certain, amorphous requirement of image, pleasing a wide variety of industry interests, including that of the red carpet press (stars, please), that of the sponsors and important guests, and that of the movie business, the studios, sales agents and the like. This fulcrum of compromise almost inevitably causes the second thing, which is that more of than not, a festival's opening night film will be utterly bland.Not so at the Berlin International Film Festival this year—or, at least, not quite. Despite an earlier rumor that the Berlinale had the world premiere of Hail, Caesar!, the new film by Joel and Ethan Coen, Hollywood had other ideas and the film actually opened in the United States last week. But...
- 2/13/2016
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
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