Mikhail Kaufman

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

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).

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Man with a Movie Camera

1929

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Kino Eye

1924

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A Sixth Part of the World

1926

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The Eleventh Year

1928

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Kino-Pravda No. 21: Lenin Kino-Pravda. A Film Poem About Lenin

1925

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Kino-Pravda No. 17

1923

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Kino-Pravda No. 18: A Movie-Camera Race over 299 Metres and 14 Minutes and 50 Seconds in the Direction of Soviet Reality

1924

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In Spring

1929