Kheifits, Iosif Efimovich

(also Josef Heifitz). Born Dec. 4 (17), 1905, in Moscow. Soviet film director and screenwriter. People’s Artist of the USSR (1964). Hero of Socialist Labor (1975). Member of the CPSU since 1945.

Kheifits graduated from the Leningrad Technicum of Cinema Art in 1927 and from the motion-picture department of the Institute for the History of Arts in 1928. He began his film career in 1928. Until 1950 he worked in collaboration with A. G. Zarkhi. In 1929, Kheifits and Zarkhi organized the first Komsomol production group, which released films similar to the plays staged at the Theater of Working Youth (TRAM), such as Against the Wind (1930) and Midday (1931). They later produced the lyric comedy Hectic Days (1935) and directed the films The Baltic Deputy (1937) and A Member of the Government (1940). During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) they made the films They Call Him Sukhe-Bator (1942), Malakhov Mound (1944), and the documentary The Defeat of Japan (1946).

Kheifits also directed The Big Family (1954), The Rumiantsev Case (1956), My Dear Man (1958), The Lady With the Dog (1960), Salute, Maria! (1970), and The One and Only (1976).

Kheifits has been awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1941, 1946), two Orders of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.