International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1930)

CULTURAL FILMS I N THE U. S. S. R. (from the French) Thirst for knowledge and the growing cultural needs of the working masses have led to a substantial increase in the production of cultural and documentary films in Russia, and during the last two or three years the development of this movement has been particularly remarkable. A typical example of a Soviet documentary film is " The Mechanism of the Brain," made by Pudovkin for the Mejrabpomfilm in 1926-27. This film expounds the materialist theory of Pavlov, a member of the Academy, concerning the higher nervous activity of animals and reproduces his celebrated experiments on the normal reflexes. Despite the extremely complicated scientific material, which made it very difficult to render the film generally intelligible, it aroused keen interest in wide circles and was greeted enthusiastically wherever it was shown. Interest in cultural and documentary films is steadily growing and the number of cinema installations in clubs and villages has greatly increased. Documentary films are much in demand and the cinema public is to be counted in millions. Nearly all the Soviet film organisations show cultural films and the Sovkino has a special factory at Moscow for this kind of film. The Mejrabpomfilm, a cultural film organisation, has multiplied its activities and may very possibly be transformed into a factory for the production of these films. In their programmes and production schemes Soviet film organisations allot an important place to cultural films, assigning to them 20-25 % °f ^e total resources available for film manufacture. Among the most interesting cultural films of the last two or three years, in addition to " The Mechanism of the Brain," are the following: " A Sixth Part of the World " (Sovkino), " Earth and Heaven " (Mejrabpomfilm), " The Feeding Problem " (Sovkino), " Alcohol " (Sovkino), " The Eleventh " (Ukraine Cinema), " Fatigue and its Remedies " (Sovkino), " Home treatment of the Sick " (Mejrabpomfilm), " The Scientific Choice of an Occupation " (Mejrabpomfilm), " Oil " (Sovkino), " Air Attack," (aviation in the service of culture) (Mejrabpomfilm) and " Love in Nature." To this list should be added a number of films turned this year and already released: " The Forest Men " (Sovkino), " The Spartacists " (Sovkino), " The Fight for Health " (Sovkino), " Here's to your Health " (a Mejrabpomfilm temperance film), " The Glass Eye " (Mejrabpomfilm), " The Man with the Film Camera " (Ukraine Cinema). Announcement is made of the approaching completion of some ethnographical and travel films, which will excite lively interest. Among these are " The Unexplored Parts of the Pamir " (Mejrabpomfilm), " The Gates of the Caucasus " (Sovkino), " In the Taigna in Search of the Meteorite " (Sovkino), " Afghanistan " (Sovkino Leningrad factory), " Among the Votiaks " (Mejrabpomfilm). Most of these films were made with the immediate assistance of Russian scientists or experts, who not only gave advice during montage, but in one case at least assumed the scientific direction. The results are correspondingly excellent and the films have aroused great interest both in the scientific world and among the general public. By appealing for the more active participation of scientists and professors, the Soviet documentary cinema is helping to solve one of the most important cultural problems of the U.S.S.R., the problem of popular education. The choice of subject is determined by the immediate requirements of economic and cultural education, by the more urgent problems of industrialisation, mechanisation in agriculture, care of public health, reorganisation of the national life, antialcohol campaign, etc. Scientific and technical progress is shown in practice. Our aim in film -making is to furnish as many examples as possible bear