The 1917 revolution swept away most old directors, with few exceptions. Among the latter the most notable was Ol’ga Preobraženskaja, a student of Stanislavskij, an actress throughout the 1910s, known for her acting style ‘à la Asta Nielsen’ in adaptations of Russian classics (Tolstoj, Turgenev, Kuprin) as well as Western literature (Strindberg, Sienkiewicz) directed by Jakov Protazanov and Vladimir Gardin, who was also her husband, and she would become the first woman director in Russia. After the revolution Preobraženskaja worked as an assistant director for Gardin and taught acting at the Goskinoškola, which he had founded, the first University of Film in the world (now the VGIK). One of her students would come to drastically change the way she approached cinema and alter the course of her professional career. Ivan Pravov came to the Goskinoškola following his experiences with the most innovative avant garde theater in Moscow, the Mejerchol’d. Once he met Preobraženskaja, the two would be inexorably tied to one another: Pravov, twenty years younger than she, had a massive influence on her career and her life. Officially, the two were credited as co-writers for the first time on Poslednij attrakcion (1929), but their biographies confirm that they worked together on Baby rjazanskie (1927) co-directing as equals. What drew Preobraženskaja to cinema was nature: “It always seemed to me that the natural environment amplifies the sensitivity of the actor, making emotions truer and more vivid”. Nature came to dominate her stylistic choices even throughout her work during the Soviet years. The films by Preobraženskaja and Pravov represented the culmination of ‘rural’ productions typical of the Sovkino, and were criticized by revolutionary cineastes and film theorists. But the two directors, without relying on new technologies, often made use of avant-garde ideas even more audaciously than the most experimental auteurs, and alternated between working with established, conventional cameramen (Chvatov, Solodkov), and those on the cutting edge (Kuznecov, Fel’dman), as well as with a consistent and complementary group of actors: the hyper-sensitive Emma Cesarskaja and the chilly Rajsa Pužnaja, the ‘Soviet Nosferatu’ Naum Rogožin and the handsome and cursed Andrej Abrikosov… Many of these actors would also work with the leading avant-garde directors. The ironic melodrama Odna radost’ (1933, now lost), the first sound film by the two directors, and was not well received by the Central Committee, which blocked its distribution. This was the beginning of their decline: the two directors lost the love of their audience, and even their talent began to vacillate. In 1941 Pravov was arrested as an enemy of the People. During and then following the war however he would return to theater and cinema: but the only success, among ten or so films, was the melodrama Vo vlasti zolota (1957), where he strove to bring back the style of work he had achieved with Preobraženskaja. After Pravov’s arrest, Ol’ga stopped working. She lived for another thirty years, sharing an apartment across from Dziga Vertov: once fierce adversaries, they were both now relegated to the margins of what was now a new era, and they became friends. Throughout the years she was never interviewed, and she was essentially forgotten. She faced Stalinism with nobility and courage, defending her husband, fallen into disgrace, and objecting when their collaborations were attributed only to her. Ol’ga Preobraženskaja and Ivan Pravov died the same year, just six months apart.

(Pëtr Bagrov, Natal’ja Nusinova)

Programme curated by Mariann Lewinsky