Dziga Vertov - Kino-Pravda (Parts 1 to 5)

1925 Киноправда

Kino-Pravda ("Film Truth") was a newsreel series by Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova, and Mikhail Kaufman.
Working mainly during the 1920s, Vertov promoted the concept of kino-pravda, or film-truth, through his newsreel series. His driving vision was to capture fragments of actuality which, when organized together, showed a deeper truth which could not be seen with the naked eye. In the "Kino-Pravda" series, Vertov focused on everyday experiences, eschewing bourgeois concerns and filming marketplaces, bars, and schools instead, sometimes with a hidden camera, without asking permission first.
The episodes of "Kino-Pravda" usually did not include reenactments or stagings (one exception is the segment about the trial of the Social Revolutionaries: the scenes of the selling of the newspapers on the streets and the people reading the papers in the trolley were both staged for the camera). The cinematography is simple, functional, unelaborate — perhaps a result of Vertov's lack of interest in either "beauty" or "art". Twenty-three issues of the series were produced over a period of three years; each issue lasted about twenty minutes and usually covered three topics. The stories were typically descriptive, not narrative, and included vignettes and exposés, showing for instance the renovation of a trolley system, the organization of farmers into communes, and the trial of Social Revolutionaries; one story shows starvation in the nascent Marxist state. Propagandistic tendencies are also present, but with more subtlety, in the episode featuring the construction of an airport: one shot shows the former Czar's tanks helping prepare a foundation, with an intertitle reading "Tanks on the labor front".
Vertov clearly intended an active relationship with his audience in the series — in the final segment he includes contact information — but by the fourteenth episode the series had become so experimental that some critics dismissed Vertov's efforts as "insane".
The term kino pravda, though it translates as "film truth", is not to be confused with the cinéma vérité movement in documentary film, which also translates as "film truth". Cinéma vérité was similarly marked by the intention of capturing reality "warts and all", but became popular in France in the 1960s.

Save the starving children!

Melekes station.

The starving children wait
for the sanitary train from the centre.

No more energy.

Left to the mercy of fate.

On the withdrawal
of the church values in Moscow.

Analyzing the confiscated goods
at the State Depository.

The experts.

Every pearl saves a child.

Comrade Vinokurov
from the Central Committee

and the bishop Antonin listen about the
methods of protecting the confiscated goods.

The German plane Junkers makes several
flights to support the starving people.

The representatives of the Junkers company:
the aviator and his assistants.

The last preparations before the flight.

The look of the plane,
which can take 6 passengers.

The start of the flight.

Moscow from the height of 750 meters.

The SR trial.
The meeting of the foreign SR defenders

Vandervilde, Rosenfeld, Libknecht etc.

The trial of the right-wing SR.
June 8 - August 7, 1922.

Thursday, June 8.
The first day of the trial.

The arrival of the accused.

Tager, the defender.

Muravyov, the barrister,
the 2nd defender.

Konoplyova, the accused.

Semenov, the author of the famous
brochure about SR crimes.

Ratner, the accused ex-SR.

Comrade Galkin,
the member of the court.

Comrade Lunacharskiy,
the prosecutor.

Comrade Krylenko,
the prosecutor.

Comrade Pyatakov,
the chairman of the main court.

Theodor Libknecht,
the foreign defender.

Kurt Rosenfeld,
the foreign defender.

Comrade Pokrovskiy,
the prosecutor.

The accused are coming.

The trial has begun.

The main court.

The main court's board at work.

The SR trial. The indictment.

The main court.

The secretariat.

The table of the defence.

The break.

The group of the foreign defenders.

The foreign defender,
the ex-minister of Belgium Vandervelde.

Kurt Rosenfeld,
the foreign defender.

(left to right)
Rosenfeld, Libknecht, Vandervelde.

Comrade Krylenko,
the prosecutor.

Comrade Lunacharskiy,
the prosecutor.

Comrade Pokrovskiy,
the prosecutor.

The accused.

The group of the accused
ex-right wing SRs.

Tuesday, June 20.
Comrade Volodarskiy killed by the SRs.

The Moscow workers' demonstration
for the proletarian justice.

Comrade Pyatakov,
the chairman of the main court:

- We were called here
to give the workers a report

about the SR trial.

There will be no mistake.
The innocents won't get hurt,

but the guilty will bear a fair punishment.

Comrade Krylenko,
the prosecutor:

- The accused confessed that
they lead the armed struggle

with the Soviet government,
and they won't stop it themselves.

The group of metal workers:
"Vandervelde is a royal clown".

Comrade Buharin:
- We want to justify the workers,

fooled by the SRs.

"The Virgin Chernov
in the circle of generals".

Under the rainstorm.

"Long live the proletarian court!!!"

KINO-PRAVDA
No. 4

The trial of SR (continuation).
See KINO-PRAVDA No. 2 and No. 3.

The ex-barrister Muravyov claims
that the defence of the 1st group

of the accused refuses
to execute its duties.

The audience.

The stenographers.

Deciphering the shorthand record.

The witness' room.

The witness is called to testify.

From Moscow to Sevastopol
and back by aeromobile.

The departure.

Near the frontier post.

En route.

Moscow. The barges with bread
depart to the starving provinces.

Caucasus and its health-resorts.

Health-resort Sochie (Caucasian Riviere).
Sea baths.

The beach with rare plants.

An old fortress in Lazarevka.

City Tuapse. Playing cards.

People’s Commissar of Agriculture
Vassiliy Yakovenko

(Paritsan of Siberia)

On the Siberian expedition of Comrade Yakovenko.
From May 17 to July 1, 1922.

The peasants from the distant villages

"Vasya! Sign the petition."

The old friends - partisans of
Comrade Yakovenko's Silver Company.

"Before, we suffered separately
and tortured our animals..."

"...Now we are a commune
and we work with a machine!"

Sochie, Caucasian Riviere,
the season of 1922.

Anapa. The sanatorium of Budinsky, MD.
Doctor Tsander's medical treatment.

City Gelengik. Cape Solntsedar.
Children sanatoriums.

56 cloudy days per year.

The first Red Derby. July 2, 1922.

The horse "Brys'" won The Red Derby.
1 1/2 verst - 2 min 25,3 sec.

The horse "Blesk" -
took the second place.

RUSSIAN PHOTO-FILM DEPARTMENT
We accept orders:

Shooting and performances.

Making the diapositives. Phototyping.

All kinds of photo and film work.

KINO-PRAVDA accepts ads.
Address: Moscow, M. Gnezdnikovsky 7.