Mikhail Kaufman
Directing

Mikhail Kaufman

Born 5 September 1897 · Bialystok, Grodno Province, Russian Empire (now Poland) · Died 3 November 1980

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 and is full of innovative visual effects: in it, Kaufman acts as a cameraman and is seen shooting the film while walking on high bridges, hanging off the side of a train, climbing a smokestack and crawling underground with miners – all in order to get the best shot. Mikhail Kaufman directed three films: Moscow (1927), In Spring (1929), and An Unprecedented Campaign (1931).

Known for

Man with a Movie Camera
Kino-Eye
A Sixth Part of the World
The Eleventh Year
Kino-Pravda No. 21: Lenin Kino-Pravda. A Film Poem About Lenin
Kino-Pravda No. 17
Kino-Pravda No. 18: A Movie-Camera Race Over 299 Metres and 14 Minutes and 50 Seconds in the Direction of Soviet Reality
Kino-Pravda No. 20: Pioneer Pravda
Kino-Pravda No. 22: Lenin Is Alive in the Heart of the Peasant. A Film Story
In Spring
Kino-Pravda No. 6
Kino-Pravda No. 23: Radio Pravda
Halo Story
Earth in Space
Our Moscow
A Great Victory
An Unprecedented Campaign
Man with a Movie Camera
In Spring
The Eleventh Year
Moscow
A Sixth Part of the World
Kino-Pravda No. 21: Lenin Kino-Pravda. A Film Poem About Lenin
Kino-Pravda No. 22: Lenin Is Alive in the Heart of the Peasant. A Film Story
Kino-Pravda No. 23: Radio Pravda
Kino-Pravda No. 18: A Movie-Camera Race Over 299 Metres and 14 Minutes and 50 Seconds in the Direction of Soviet Reality
Kino-Pravda No. 20: Pioneer Pravda
Kino-Eye
Kino-Pravda No. 17
Kino-Pravda No. 6
Mikhail Kaufman · Midrow