Yelizaveta Svilova

Yelizaveta Ignatevna Svilova (born Elizaveta Schnitt) was born on September 5, 1900, in Moscow. Starting at age 14, she began film editing for Pathé. She worked with Vladimir Gardin and with Vsevolod Meyerhold. From 1918 to 1922, she worked at Narkompros. From 1922, she worked at Goskino. She met Dziga Vertov while working as a film editor. They married in 1923.{{cite web|url=https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/367302/1/C%2520Penfold%2520Thesis.pdf |title=University of Southampton Research Repository ePrints Soton|access-date=2023-09-02}} After her husband fell out of favor in the Soviet film industry, Svilova continued to work in film and supported both of them. They continued to work together until Vertov's death from stomach cancer in 1954.

Though she began as an editor, Svilova moved away from doing fiction films and onto montage documentary. Svilova edited the seminal Soviet propaganda film about the liberation of Auschwitz Oświęcim (1945). Her directorial debut was For You at the Front (1942). The Fall of Berlin (1945), co directed with Yuli Raziman, won the 1946 Stalin prize.

She was the director-editor of over 100 documentaries and newsreel episodes from 1939 to 1956.{{Cite thesis|title=Elizaveta Svilova and Soviet documentary film|url=https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/367302/|publisher=University of Southampton|date=2013|degree=Ph.D.|first=Christopher|last=Penfold}}

Following her husband's death, Svilova left the industry. She carefully watched over her husband's legacy by publishing his writings and cataloging his manuscripts. She died in 1975 in Moscow and is buried in Novodevichy Cemetery.{{Cite web|url=http://www.btchflcks.com/2015/11/vintage-viewing-elizaveta-svilova-mastering-montage.html#.WjyQlFQ-fq1|title=Vintage Viewing: Elizaveta Svilova, Mastering Montage {{!}} Bitch Flicks|website=www.btchflcks.com|language=en-US|access-date=2017-12-22}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.allmovie.com/artist/elizaveta-svilova-p198583|title=Elizaveta Svilova {{!}} Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos {{!}} AllMovie|website=AllMovie|access-date=2017-12-22}}

She was part of the "Council of Three," with her husband and brother-in-law, cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman. They were regarded as montage theorists and together, they "proclaimed a 'death sentence' on the cinema that came before, faulting it for mixing in 'foreign matter' from theater and literature."Lim, Dennis (April 8, 2011). [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/movies/dziga-vertov-films-at-museum-of-modern-art.html Machine Age Poet, Born in Revolution, Stifled Under Stalin.] New York Times

The group is known for "pioneering montage documentary".{{Cite web|url=https://www.fandango.com/people/elizaveta-svilova-655955/biography|title=Elizaveta Svilova Biography {{!}} Fandango|website=Fandango|access-date=2017-12-22}} Their film Man with a Movie Camera (1929) features Svilova editing film and Kaufman filming the movie. The film is regarded as "a landmark in experimental cinema".{{Cite web|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/svilova-elizaveta-1900-1975|title=Svilova, Elizaveta (1900–1975) - Dictionary definition of Svilova, Elizaveta (1900–1975) {{!}} Encyclopedia.com: FREE online dictionary|website=www.encyclopedia.com|language=en|access-date=2017-12-22}}

Shortly after Man with a Movie Camera, Kaufman and Vertov had a falling out over artistic differences resulting in the two brothers never working together again. One suggested reason is prominence of Svilova in the film and her subsequent notoriety.{{Cite book|title=The Russian Cinema Reader: Volume I, 1908 to the Stalin era|last=Salys|first=Rimgaila|author-link1=Rimgaila Salys|publisher=Academic Studies Press|year=2013|location=Boston|pages=182}}

The trio was known for their avant-garde and futurist ideas. Vertov's work was condemned for being too formalist and not adhering to the socialist realism expectations of the time. In 1927, he was fired from Sovkino Studio. In the late 1930s, it was nearly impossible for Vertov to find work in the state-run film industry.

She covered the opening of Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland by the Red Army in January 1945. She filmed a documentary, which included reenactments, titled Auschwitz, part of an exhibition titled "Filming the War; the Soviets and the Holocaust (1941-1946)" (9 January 2015 – 27 September 2015) in Paris, France at the Memorial de la Shoah.

In 1946, her film Fascist Atrocities was used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials. She later directed a film about the trials, condemning the warmongering and atrocities present in World War II.

Source:{{Cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0841294/|title=Elizaveta Svilova|website=IMDb|access-date=2017-12-22}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb name|0841294}}
• {{find a Grave|23888775}}
• [https://wfpp.columbia.edu/pioneer/elizaveta-svilova/#citation Elizaveta Svilova] at the Women Film Pioneers Project

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Svilova, Yelizaveta}}

Category:1900 births

Category:1975 deaths

Category:Mass media people from Moscow

Category:Women film editors

Category:Soviet women film directors

Category:Women film pioneers