On the Public Rails: A History of Soviet Amateur Filmmaking (1957-1991)

FAIN: FEL-282914-22

Maria Vinogradova
Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY 11205-3817)

Research and writing leading to a scholarly monograph on Soviet amateur cinema between 1957 and 1991.

This book project offers the first scholarly study of organized Soviet amateur cinema. During its most productive period, between about 1957 and 1991, numerous amateur collectives at factories, universities, vocational schools and other organizations created a vast body of films that ranged from “useful,” such as newsreels, industrial, educational and corporate films, to “useless,” such as fiction, animation and occasional experimental works. These films, together with the contexts for their creation, constitute a forgotten chapter in the history of the use of the film medium in the Soviet Union. Analyzing extant amateur films and drawing on archival documents, manuals for cine enthusiasts and interviews, this book highlights the three actors that shaped Soviet amateur film culture after 1957: cine amateurs themselves, state institutions that provided material support, and professional filmmakers whose advocacy was instrumental in the mass development of amateur production.

Associated Products

Sergei Prokofiev’s Holiday Movie Screening (Blog Post)
Title: Sergei Prokofiev’s Holiday Movie Screening
Author: Maria Vinogradova
Author: Asja Dolgikh
Abstract: This is a brief illustrated blog post for on Sergei Prokofiev’s home movie-making. As a premise it takes Prokofiev’s diary note of December 29, 1930 – exactly 93 years before the date of the blog post – describing a holiday party where his home movies were screened. It includes drawing by the artist Asja Dolgikh imagining the home movies and the process of their creation. The post aims to introduce this collaborative project to general public.
Date: 12/29/2023
Primary URL: https://wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2023/12/29/prokofiev_movie_party/
Primary URL Description: This is a companion blog to NYU Orphan Film Symposium, a biennial event dedicated to saving, studying and screening neglected cinema and media artifacts.
Blog Title: Sergei Prokofiev’s Holiday Movie Screening
Website: Orphan Film Symposium Blog

Amateur Film During the Interwar Period: Translation of and Introductions to Soviet-era primary Sources on the History of amateur Filmmaking (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Amateur Film During the Interwar Period: Translation of and Introductions to Soviet-era primary Sources on the History of amateur Filmmaking
Author: Maria Vinogradova
Abstract: Upon an invitation from the project's editors, Charles Tepperman and Masha Salazkina, I translated one article and one selection of texts related to the history of Soviet and European amateur filmmaking between the two world wars: 1. Grigorii Boltianskii, “Foto- kinoliubitel'stvo v klube” (“Photo- and Film Amateurism in a [Workers’] Club”), Sovetskoe kino no. 6-7 (1926): 2-3. Translation. Grigorii Boltianskii was a film educator and a pioneering figure in the history of Soviet documentary. He was the chair of of the section of amateur photography and film at the Society of Friends of Soviet Cinema (Obshchestvo druzei sovetskogo kino – ODSK, 1926 - 1932). This article is a programmatic piece. Informed by his vision of proletarian cinema, it stresses the social utility of amateur pursuits, and an organized approach to filmmaking reliant on a centralized institutional structure that would ensure access to material resources and training. 2. “Sergei Prokofiev in/at the Movies: Diary Notes and One Letter, 1930,” a compilation of personal documents related to Sergei Prokofiev’s home movie making on 9.5mm film. Prokofiev left Russia in 1918, a few months after October Revolution, and lived outside abroad in the next 18 years. In 1930 he bought a popular Pathé Baby system for making and screening films on 9.5mm stock. He described the films in his diary and mentioned them in his correspondence. My selection includes translations of these diary notes and one letter. In my introduction I highlight the fact that Prokofiev’s attitude to making amateur films was the opposite to the methods prescribed to socialist filmmakers by Grigorii Boltianskii.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://www.amateurcinema.org/index.php/amdb
Primary URL Description: The Amateur Movie Database is a tool for exploring the history of amateur cinema in North America during the middle of the 20th century. Its project on the study of the history of amateur filmmaking expands the scope beyond North America to include contributions on other parts of the world. The translations will be published in 2024.
Access Model: Open access, online.

(Forthcoming) “‘Cosmic Yuri’: Home Movies by a Ballet Legend,” NYU Orphan Film Symposium 14, Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, April 10-13, 2024. Conference presentation and film screening. (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: (Forthcoming) “‘Cosmic Yuri’: Home Movies by a Ballet Legend,” NYU Orphan Film Symposium 14, Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, April 10-13, 2024. Conference presentation and film screening.
Author: Maria Vinogradova
Abstract: Yuri Soloviev (1940 – 1977) was a legend of the Soviet ballet in the 1960s and 70s. Especially famous for his phenomenal leaps, he was often called “Cosmic Yuri” as a reference to Yuri Gagarin. He partnered the most famous dancers of his generation, and during his years as a student at the Vaganova Ballet Academy he was in the same cohort as Rudolf Nureyev. Soloviev’s early death by suicide in 1977 devastated and puzzled his contemporaries by the incomprehensibility of its motives. In addition to being a stellar dancer, Soloviev was a film amateur for much of his adult life, taking his 8mm camera on tours, filming his theatre’s daily life, and recording moments of leisure, such as fishing. Labels on surviving reels include references to the most celebrated dancers, such as Irina Kolpakova, Natalia Makarova, and Mikhail Baryshnikov (“Misha doing a headstand”). The collection also includes footage from the company’s Paris tour in 1961 during which Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West. Soloviev was Nureyev’s roommate on the tour, and became subject to much scrutiny by KGB, which most likely confiscated parts of the footage referencing Nureyev. As one part of my research, I am planning to inspect the remaining parts of this footage. Soloviev’s reels survive in the collection of Saint Petersburg-based filmmaker and historian of dance Viktor Bocharov. Bocharov’s discovery of Alexander Shiryaev’s early animation made an international sensation as it premiered at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in 2008, adding an important name to the list of pioneers of animation. This discovery became possible due to Bocharov’s rare combination of fields of expertise, film and classical dance. This interdisciplinary has helped Bocharov to identify and discover other important but obscure collections of films. I propose to introduce and screen a selection of 8mm footage from Yuri Soloviev’s collection. With Viktor Bocharov’s permission I will bring about ten reels, selected based on s
Date: 04/10/2024
Primary URL: https://wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2024/01/06/program_part1/
Primary URL Description: The NYU Orphan Film Symposium convenes April 10-13, 2024, at Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, NYC. Our theme: Work & Play. How have orphan works documented and envisioned these subjects throughout the history of moving images? Once again archivists, scholars, artists, curators, and others will convene to screen and discuss a plethora of preserved audiovisual works. This is a partial list of presentations selected for the Symposium. The list will be updated.
Conference Name: NYU Orphan Film Symposium

“Amateur Film Gauges: The Medium Matters,” Amateur Film Fest, Sevkabelport, Saint Petersburg, Russia, October 27, 2023. In Russian. Keynote talk. (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: “Amateur Film Gauges: The Medium Matters,” Amateur Film Fest, Sevkabelport, Saint Petersburg, Russia, October 27, 2023. In Russian. Keynote talk.
Abstract: The lecture introduced the history of non-professional film practices through the prism of technological development. It highlighted the significant of the medium and gauge on which audiovisual works were created, arguing that each medium, whether it was 17.5, 22, 16, 8, or 9.5mm, constituted its own culture. In the digital era, when analog media artifacts are migrated to digital media, knowledge of the original format is indispensable to understanding the nature of amateur works. This public lecture opened the three-day Amateur Film Fest in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The event celebrated the centennial of the introduction of two of the most important amateur film gauges: 16mm by Kodak, and 9.5mm by Pathé Baby. Such celebrations were organized in 1923 in many parts of the world. I was glad to see attention to the centennial in Russia where public and scholarly attention to the issue of preserving ephemeral film and media artifacts has generally been low. The event was organized by a group of young curators and film and media enthusiasts. While many of their peers left Russia after it began a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2024, the event organizers and the community of the festival believe in the important of continuing cultural work in the situation when freedom of speech is extremely limited under Russia’s current authoritarian government. Their ability for self-organization and understanding of the significance of minor cultural practices demonstrate the potential for democratic development in the future if Russia overcomes this current crisis.
Author: Maria Vinogradova
Date: 10/27/2023
Location: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Primary URL: https://sevcableport.timepad.ru/event/2641163/
Primary URL Description: Website of the art space Sevkabelport that hosted the event.
Secondary URL: https://t.me/s/amateurfilmsfest
Secondary URL Description: The festival's Telegram channel that contains more detailed information about its events.

“Soviet Experimental Cinema and the Amateur Scene,” Everyday Avant-Garde: Experimental Amateur Film Scenes in the USSR and Socialist Yugoslavia, a conference organized by Paris College of Art and Emerson College, November 15, 2022. Online. Invited talk. (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Soviet Experimental Cinema and the Amateur Scene,” Everyday Avant-Garde: Experimental Amateur Film Scenes in the USSR and Socialist Yugoslavia, a conference organized by Paris College of Art and Emerson College, November 15, 2022. Online. Invited talk.
Author: Maria Vinogradova
Abstract: The talk highlighted the foundations that the Soviet amateur film movement laid for the development of Soviet experimental and underground film scene in the 1980s. Framed as a part of the conference organized by Paris College of Art and Emerson College, the talk was primarily a guest lecture for a class of students at Emerson College.
Date: 11/15/2022
Conference Name: Everyday Avant-Garde: Experimental Amateur Film Scenes in the USSR and Socialist Yugoslavia

“A Useful Practice: Amateur Filmmaking in the USSR (1924 – 1964),” Useful Film Under State Socialism, an international conference organized by National University for Theatre and Film, Bucharest, Romania, October 21-22, 2022. (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “A Useful Practice: Amateur Filmmaking in the USSR (1924 – 1964),” Useful Film Under State Socialism, an international conference organized by National University for Theatre and Film, Bucharest, Romania, October 21-22, 2022.
Author: Maria Vinogradova
Abstract: In his 1986 article “Media Myopia and Genre Centrism,” anthropologist Richard Chalfen criticized academic media studies for applying social and cultural models of analysis to works created by the elites of the media sector, while neglecting the non-professional “practice,” or amateur film and photography. Chalfen thus articulated a useful distinction between activities whose main objective is creating “works” and those for which the work itself is secondary to the practice of its creation. By the time academic scholars turned their attention to such practices, other types of professionals, especially teachers, had been engaging them for decades. In the USSR broad development of amateur filmmaking was delayed by the lack of small-gauge film equipment and stock. In a centrally planned economy, there were few alternatives to sharing equipment, especially during the 1920s and 30s when it was particularly scarce. Therefore, the main impetus to developing amateur filmmaking was through state-supported clubs. How did the state authorities justify creating and maintaining this resource? Involvement in the practice of filmmaking, as well as the dissemination of visual and technical literacy through it, were valued no less than the films themselves. This paper discusses the Soviet notion of amateur filmmaking as a “useful practice.” Never formulated as an official policy, it was key to turning cine-amateurism into an institution. Its “uses” ranged from creating an environment that stimulated social cohesion to engaging it as a tool of pedagogy, and occasionally could include some less common roles for amateurs, such as overseeing responsible maintenance of film prints by local projectionists. I am currently working on an article based on this presentation.
Date: 10/22/2024
Secondary URL: https://studyinromania.gov.ro/unatc
Secondary URL Description: The host university's website. I believe the conference itself did not have a website. The program was distributed among participants as a PDF file.
Conference Name: Useful Film Under State Socialism

“Whose Gauge? 16mm Film and the Soviet Sixties,” Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), October 14, 2022. Online. Conference presentation. (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Whose Gauge? 16mm Film and the Soviet Sixties,” Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), October 14, 2022. Online. Conference presentation.
Author: Maria Vinogradova
Abstract: A dramatic growth of both film production and moviegoing alongside increasingly diverse uses of motion pictures famously characterize the Soviet culture of the 1960s. This paper discusses the place and role of 16mm film in this process, focusing, in particular, on its balance between professional and amateur uses. The paper was a part of the panel, which I co-organized, titled "Expanding Cinema: 16mm Film in the Soviet Union". Panel abstract: This panel highlights the place and role of 16mm film in the Soviet film culture. Introduced in 1923 in the United States by Kodak as a more affordable and accessible alternative to 35mm film used by the professional film industry, and marketed to amateurs, 16mm film quickly spread worldwide to occupy a significant niche in film exhibition, in particular, in smaller public venues such as film clubs and lecture halls. By the late 1930s it was adopted by a diverse range of professionals, from industrial and educational to documentary and avant-garde filmmakers, and later for television, worldwide. Evidently 16mm is the most versatile gauge in the history of the film medium. Its history in the USSR diverges from the more familiar trajectory. For about three decades since the late 1920s it was almost exclusively used for distribution prints, while its use as a camera original did not become common until the 1960s. Its significance in the Soviet context is often obscured by the fact that state film archives rarely preserved films on 16mm. Focusing on the period between the mid-1950s and late 1970s, our panel discusses the reasons for broad adoption of this gauge in the USSR, and highlights some of its uses in the Soviet context.
Date: 10/14/2022
Primary URL: https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/aseees/aseees22/
Conference Name: Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) Annual Convention

Soviet Amateur Film Culture (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Soviet Amateur Film Culture
Author: Maria Vinogradova
Abstract: This talk was a guest lecture for the course Orphan Films: Saving, Screening, and Studying Neglected Cinema, taught by Prof. Dan Streible at the Martin Scorcese Department of Cinema Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, on November 13, 2023. The lecture introduced the Soviet amateur film culture in the USSR. Significantly different from its international counterparts, understanding this culture helps to understand the dimensions that film amateurism took worldwide.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CFx8SbFd8mzvVYVwJexuMFnVwyI7GBbN/edit?pli=1
Primary URL Description: Syllabus for Prof. Streible's advanced undergraduate seminar Orphan Films: Saving, Screening, and Studying Neglected Cinema.
Audience: Undergraduate

16mm Film in the Soviet Union (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: 16mm Film in the Soviet Union
Author: Maria Vinogradova
Abstract: A dramatic growth of both film production and moviegoing alongside increasingly diverse uses of motion pictures famously characterize the Soviet culture of the 1960s. This paper discusses the place and role of 16mm film and its emerging infrastructure in this process, focusing, in particular, on its balance between professional and amateur uses, and discussing the reluctance of archivists in today's Russia and other post-Soviet countries to commit to preserving small-gauge film. The talk was a part of the panel titled International Amateur Cinema: Histories, Archives, Metadata.
Date: 11/16/2023
Primary URL: https://amiaconference.net/amia-2023-program/
Primary URL Description: Conference program.
Conference Name: Annual Conference of the Association of Moving Image Archivists

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