Born Denis Abelevich Kaufman, but best known by his pseudonym, Russian filmmaker and film theorist Dziga Vertov (1896–1954) holds a major place in the history of cinema. His films, which were intended as bold aesthetic experiments in documenting contemporary life, have influenced generations of avant-garde and documentary filmmakers and are as revelatory today as when they first premiered. Vertov rejected traditional dramatic styles of filmmaking, embracing new forms of production instead. At the core of his cinema is an impulse to link aesthetic form to revolutionary transformation, which we see in his newsreels and features alike.
This is the largest series of Vertov's films ever mounted by the Pacific Film Archive. The retrospective stretches over three months, aligning with a course on Dziga Vertov taught by UC Berkeley professor Anne Nesbet, who will introduce several public screenings. We are also pleased to welcome Adelheid Heftberger, curator of the Vertov Collection at the Austrian Film Museum, who will offer two guest introductions, and University of Chicago professor Yuri Tsivian, who will be our guest lecturer on November 6.