Kinofilm Project takes inspiration from the Kinoks, a Soviet cinema movement that emerged in the 1920's following the collapse of the Russian Empire. The Kinoks ("kino-oki," meaning cinema-eyes) was a collective of filmmakers who sought to revolutionize the role of film modern society. The Kinoks rejected staged cinema with its stars, plots, props and studio shooting, and insisted that films of the future be the cinema of fact. They published their manifestos in avant-garde journals, worked within Constructivist artistic circles, and had confidence in modernity and technology. The new movement was led by its founder (and former medical student) Dziga Vertov, his brother/cameraman Mikhail Kaufman and wife/editor Elizaveta Svilova. The Kinoks adopted slogans such as "Long live life as it is!" and "Film us as we are", demonstrating their belief that the stories of ordinary people and their everyday lives were subjects worthy of being captured on film.




Dziga Vertov (1896-1954) was one of the brilliant minds of early Soviet Cinema and revolutionized the documentary film by raising it to the level of personal art form. Born Denis Kaufman into a Jewish intellectual family in Bialystok, he adopted the name Dziga Vertov (which literally translates as "spinning top") when in university. Soon after the Russian Revolution he founded The Kinoks, and also joined the Moscow Film Committee, where as editor of the newsreel department he created agit-prop films from footage sent from the ongoing Civil War. Vertov insisted that everything in cinema should emanate from real life itself, and exem- plified this belief in his masterpiece film "Man With a Movie Camera", which dazzled international critics but was greeted with confusion and outrage in the USSR. Vertov had a decisive influence on subsequent documentary filmmaking, and years later, his influence was felt especially on the "cinema veritie" movement of the 1960's.





Mikhail Kaufman (1897-1980) was the younger brother and key collaborator of director Dziga Vertov, and left his permanent stamp on early filmmaking by playing the title character in Vertov's groundbreaking documentary "Man With a Movie Camera". Raised in Moscow, Kaufman had an interest in photography from an early age. During the Russian Civil War, he served in the Red Army- afterwards he joined The Kinoks, serving as its main camera man from 1922 to 1929. He developed the hidden camera technique to film people unawares, and his directorial debut "Moscow" (1926) was the first to follow the dawn to dusk format that featured in the 1920's documentary genre known as "City Symphony" films. Kaufman parted ways professionally with Vertov in 1929, and continued developing his film style for several years; however, his talent was squashed by Stalinist censorship starting in the 1930's, and he spent his later career creating bland works of propaganda.





Elizaveta Svilova (1900-1975) was the wife of documentary filmmaker Dziga Vertov and a key member of his film collective. In her early teens, she began working as an editing assistant for the French film company Pathe in Moscow, and in 1918 became an editor of features at Goskino, the State Committee for Cinematography. Impressed by the dynamic style of Vertov's agit-prop documentaries, Svilova became one of his most vocal proponents. In 1922 she joined The Kinoks, began to work with Vertov, and they married in 1924. Svilova film edited alongside Vertov throughout the 1920's, and in 1931, was the assistant director for their first sound film "Entuziazm". Svilova was highly respected as a film editor, and her reputation protected her from the State disapporoval that negatively impacted her husband's later career. Following Vertov's death, Svilova put much effort into making his writings and archives available to the general public.