Faintsimmer, Aleksandr

Faintsimmer, Aleksandr Mikhailovich

 

(Alexander Feinzimmer). Born Dec. 31, 1905 (Jan. 13, 1906), in Ekaterino-slav (present-day Dnepropetrovsk). Soviet film director. Honored Art Worker of the Byelorussian SSR (1935) and the Lithuanian SSR (1954).

Faintsimmer graduated from the department of film directing of the State Technicum of Cinematography in 1928. He won fame with his satiric comedy Lieutenant Kije in 1934. The Soviet Navy, which occupies an important place in his works, is the subject of People From the Baltic (1938), The Tanker Derbent (1941), and For Those in the Sea! (1948). A number of his best films deal with the Civil War, the Great Patriotic War, and the underground movement, for example, Kotovskii (1943), Konstantin Zaslonov (1949, in collaboration with V. V. Korsh-Sablin), and They Have a Homeland (1950). Faintsimmer collaborated with Lithuanian film-makers on Dawn Over the Neman in 1953. In 1955 he adapted Voynich’s novel The Gadfly for the screen. He also directed musical comedies, such as Girl With a Guitar (1958) and The Sleeping Lion (1965).

Faintsimmer has been awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1950, 1951), the Order of the Badge of Honor, and various medals.