Mosfilm

the largest Soviet film studio; one of the largest in the world. It was founded in 1924 in Moscow.

In its early years, Mosfil’m produced feature, science-fiction, and animated films; since 1935 it has produced only feature films. Important directors who worked for Mosfil’m during its early period and contributed greatly to the development of the Soviet cinema were A. P. Dovzhenko, M. K. Kalatozov, A. L. Ptushko, V. I. Pudovkin, I. A. Pyr’ev, M. I. Romm, S. M. Eisenstein, and K. K. Iudin. Other important workers at Mosfil’m during this period were the cameramen M. P. Magidson and E. K. Tisse and the artists V. V. Egorov and A. A. Utkin.

In 1974, film directors at the studio included G. V. Aleksandrov, A. A. Alov, V. P. Basov, S. F. Bondarchuk, L. I. Gaidai, G. N. Daneliia, E. L. Dzigan, A. G. Zarkhi, Iu. Iu. Karasik, A. S. Konchalovskii, A. N. Mitta, V. N. Naumov, Iu. N. Ozerov, V. S. Ordynskii, Iu. Ia. Raizman, A. M. Room, G. L. Roshal’, E. A. Riazanov, A. A. Saltykov, S. I. Samsonov, A. S. Smirnov, Iu. I. Solntseva, A. B. Stolper, V. P. Stroeva, I. V. Talankin, A. A. Tarkovskii, D. Ia. Khrabrovitskii, M. M. Khutsiev, Iu. S. Chuliukin, G. N. Chukhrai, M. A. Shveitser, and S. I. Iutkevich. The studio’s cameramen included N. M. Ardashnikov, L. V. Kosmatov, G. N. Lavrov, V. N. Monakhov (cameraman and director), N. V. Olonovskii, A. A. Petritskii, S. P. Urusevskii (cameraman and director), and V. I. Iusov. Artists working at the studio in 1974 were M. A. Bogdanov, E. I. Kuman’kov, G. A. Miasnikov, I. N. Novoderezhkin, and A. I. Parkhomenko.

Many of Mosfil’m’s releases have been widely acclaimed in the USSR and abroad. The best films of the 1930’s and 1940’s were Petersburg Night (1934), Jolly Fellows (1934), We Are From Kronstadt (1936), Party Card (1936), The Last Night (1937), Lenin in October (1937), Alexander Nevsky (1938), Lenin in 1918 (1939), Suvorov (1941), Mashenka (1942), Secretary of the Raion Committee (1942), Kutuzov (1944), and Invasion (1945).

From the end of the 1940’s to the early 1970’s, important films produced at the studio included Admiral Nakhimov (1947), Story of a Real Man (1948), Michurin (1949), The Forty-first (1956), The Cranes Are Flying (1957), Sisters (1957), Stories About Lenin (1958), The Communist (1958), Serezha (1960), Story of Flaming Years (1961), Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Nine Days of One Year (1962), An Optimistic Tragedy (1963), The Living and the Dead (1964), The Chairman (1965), Ordinary Fascism (1966), Lenin inPoland (1966), the film epic War and Peace (1966–67), The Iron Stream (1967), Your Contemporary (1968), Sixth of July (1968), Anna Karenina (1968), The Brothers Karamazov (1969), The Race (1970), The Byelorussian Station (1971), Solaris (1972), The Taming of Fire (1972), This Sweet Word—Liberty (1973), and The Red Snowball Bush (1974).

Outstanding productions of the Mosfil’m studio that have earned the Lenin Prize were Poem of a Sea (1959), A Man’s Fate (1960), Ballad of a Soldier (1961), and Liberation (1970–71). About 40 films were awarded the State Prize of the USSR and the RSFSR; more than 100 films have received prizes at international and all-Union film festivals.

Six distinct film associations work at the studio. Mosfil’m’s production capacity is about 40 films a year. Since 1945, a motion-picture actors’ workshop has been in operation at the studio. Mosfil’m was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1939 and the Order of the October Revolution in 1974.