Mikhail Kaufman

Mikhail Kaufman was a Soviet cinematographer and photographer. In the 1920s, after Mikhail Kaufman returned from the Russian Civil War, his brother director Dziga Vertov offered him the opportunity to participate in his newsreel series Kino-Pravda as a cameraman.

Kaufman directed photography for several films, including Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera. The film is built around meta-reference and is full of innovative visual effects: in it, Kaufman acts as a cameraman and is seen shooting the film while walking on high bridges, hanging off the side of a train, climbing a smokestack and crawling underground with miners – all in order to get the best shot.

Mikhail Kaufman directed three films: Moscow (1927), In Spring (1929), and An Unprecedented Campaign (1931).

Known For

Man with a Movie Camera

Kino-Pravda No. 21: Lenin Kino-Pravda. A Film Poem About Lenin

Kino Eye

The Eleventh Year

In Spring

A Sixth Part of the World

Kino-Pravda No. 6

Planet of Secrets

Kino-Pravda No. 18: A Movie-Camera Race over 299 Metres and 14 Minutes and 50 Seconds in the Direction of Soviet Reality

Kino-Pravda No. 22: Lenin Is Alive in the Heart of the Peasant. A Film Story