The Role Soviet Cinema played in the Third Cinema Movement

by Lidiya Kan

The question of whether Soviet cinema can be considered Third cinema has been lingering in my mind during the class. The films I had not seen before looked strangely familiar, the ideas that the readings raised felt relatable and the discussions clarified some of my personal identity issues. The similarities did not appear coincidental, and the deeper I looked into the history of the Soviet filmmaking, the more direct those connections became.

Beginning of Agit-Propaganda.

August 27th, 1919 marked the birthday of the Soviet Cinema, the film industry was nationalized. Along with internationally influential films of Dziga Vertov and Sergey Eisenstein, the government funded short educational films, Agitki, with the purpose to agitate, enlighten, and spark a conversation; these films were visual supplements for live lectures to promote Soviet ideas. Agit-trains and agit-steamboats were sent to every corner of the country. Each train and steamboat had an office of complaints and suggestions, a newspaper printing facility, a radio station, an art space, and a video projection room; the team onboard included political leaders and enthusiastic speakers.

Dziga Vertov himself traveled on the agit-train many times. In the report about the October Revolution train, he wrote that despite the low quality, films were more convincing than orators’ speeches. The agit-steamboat, such as Red Star, could provide 600-800 seats; in 1919-1920, it held almost 2000 film screenings.

Sometimes the viewings were followed by the theatrical performances called Agit Court. Presenters and lecturers would transform into judges, prosecutors, defenders, and defendants; the local audience would play the role of witnesses. Often the reenacted cases had political nature, defendants were the bourgeoisie class promoting anti-revolutionary ideas and the focus of these immersive experiences was to illustrate the benefits of the Soviet regime to the simple country folks.

A few decades later, Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas followed this agitprop tradition in their The Hour of the Furnaces (1968). There are obvious differences, Soviet films were funded by the governments, and distribution was supported; Getino and Fernando’s film was made under the dictatorship and viewings were risky and dangerous. However, in both cases, the approach of a collective idea and the goal to educate and agitate viewers were used successfully.

Diversity of Soviet Cinema.

Soviet Russia is often perceived as the oppressor of the other republics in the Soviet Union, and even though there was the hierarchy, I hesitate to call it the colonizer – colonized dynamic. Soviet Russia was dominant, it was geographically bigger, and the revolutionary liberation took place in Petrograd, the capital of the Russian Empire; the other nations were treated with patronage and were referred to as “younger brothers.” During the 80 years of the Soviet regime, the country was dysfunctional in many ways, but it did not feel culturally oppressive. Growing up in the Soviet Union, one would learn Russian history, literature, language, and culture along with their national history, literature, language, and culture.

Country leaders viewed films as the most efficient propaganda tool and the most important form of art. In 1923, the government decided to build one national kinostudio in every Soviet Republic. This decision, of course, had an exploitative agenda, to demonstrate to the Western world how socialist ideas could liberate and develop Third World countries. However, it also cultivated the complex, multinational, and multicultural film industry; filmmakers, screenwriters, actors, composers, and other professionals from every Soviet Republic had a change of representation.

I grew up in the years after the collapse of the country, old Soviet films shaped my perception of the Soviet Union as culturally rich and ethnically accepting; I love and still rewatch many of them. The films listed below are a glimpse into the vast Soviet film archive.

Pepo (Armenfilm, 1935) – first Armenian sound film, directed by Hamo Beknazarian (1891-1965) and Armen Gulakyan (1899-1960). The film was based on an 1876 play by an Armenian playwright Gabriel Sundukyan (1825-1912). It is a story of a poor but honest fisherman named Pepo, who was tricked and robbed by a sly trader. The cast was all Armenian and they acted in their native language. The score for the film was composed by Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978), one of the most prominent Soviet Armenian composers. The film was well-received internationally, introducing Armenian culture to the world; in the US, Pepo was distributed by Amkino Corporation.

Qadjana (Gryziafilm, 1941) – Gryziafilm drama by Konstantin Pipinashvili (1912-1969), a Soviet Georgian filmmaker. The film is based on the novel by Niko Lomouri (1852-1915), a Georgian writer and educator. Qadjana, a son of a poor farmer, who lost his voice as a result of the spell by a greedy landowner. To save the boy, his family must leave their home to find a healing icon. All Georgian cast acted in Georgian and Russian languages. This film was one of the very few fiction films produced between 1941 and 1945, the period when the Soviet Union was actively fighting in WWII.

In a few years after the end of WWII, Kazkhfilm produced 3 films, the result of Soviet nations working together. Stories of ethnic Kazakhs were told by casts and crews that included professionals from Soviet Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Belarus, and Latvia.

Songs of Abai (Kazakhfilm, 1945) by Grigori Roshal (1899-1983) and Efim Dzigan(1898-1981). The screen adaptation of the novel “Abai” by Mukhtar Auezov (1897-1961) recreates the story of prominent Kazakh poet and philosopher Abay Kunanbayev (1945-1902).

Golden Horn (Kazakhfilm, 1948) by Efim Dzigan, a story of a young Kazakh scientist, Dzhakan Dasanov, who is in charge of developing a new breed of sheep and whose persistence and dedication, eventually, results in success.

Dzhambul (Kazakhfilm, 1952) by Efim Dzigan, a biographical drama about Dzhambyl Dzhambayuly (1846-1945), a Kazakh traditional folk singer and poet.

A Poet’s Fate (Tadjikfilm, 1959) by Boris Kimyagarov (1920-1979), a Tajik director. The film tells about the Tajik poet Rudaki, the founder of Farsi poetry. The film received the first prize and a Golden Eagle award at the 2nd Afro-Asian Film Festival in Cairo, Egypt in 1960.

Tashkent, the Bread City (Uzbekfilm, 1968) by Shukhrat Abbasov (1931-2018). The film was produced by Uzbekfilm and directed by Uzbeki director, but had mainly Russian cast. It is based on the story of a Russian writer, Alexander Neverov (1886-1923), and tells the story of a young boy, Misha, from a small Russian village. People in the village are starving, due to drought there are no crops and the Soviet government is unable to help. To save his family, Misha decided to travel to the place that is known for its abundance of fruit and vegetables, the city of Tashkent. The film was heavily censored, but the filmmakers were able to save the original copy by stealing it from the studio. Hatam Faiziev (1937-2013), the cinematographer, kept the copy in his personal archive until 45 years later when in 2013, the full film was screened in Tashkent.

Mimino (Mosfilm, 1977) by Georgiy Daneliya (1930-2019). The multicultural identity of the USSR naturally resulted in competitiveness between the republics, but Soviet cinema addressed it in a kind-hearted and humorous way and Mimino is a classic example of it. The film tells the story of two strangers, Georgian bush pilot Valiko and Armenian truck driver Ruben. They meet accidentally struggling to survive in the country capital, periodically getting into arguments fuelled by Armenian-Georgian rivalry, only to become friends at the end.

The Needle (Kazakhfilm, 1988) by Rashid Nygmanov (1954). Even the Korean diaspora had representation in the Soviet cinema; the film was produced by Kazakhfilm and starred Victor Tsoi (1962-1990), a Russian Korean rock musician (who deserves a whole separate article). The film openly talks about drug addictions and crime problems in the country and it was the first Soviet film that addressed the environmental issue of the Aral sea.

It is important to mention that as the Soviet films were not made to make money; they were actively distributed and screened in the theaters and on TV, directors and actors were achieving national and international fame and popularity, but no monetary gain. It became especially obvious, when in the 90s when the country was going through a destructive metamorphosis; many established Soviet actors were on the brink of poverty trying to adapt to the new capitalist system.

Soviet Union’s relationship with the Third World Countries.

In October 1958, the first Afro-Asian Writers Association conference took place in Tashkent; over two hundred Asian and African writers gathered in the capital of the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan. Amongst the invited writers were W.E.B. Du Bois (an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist), Nâzım Hikmet Ran (a Turkish modernist poet, novelist, playwright, and director), Faiz Ahmad Faiz (a Pakistani Marxist, poet and writer), Mao Dun (a Chinese essayist, journalist, novelist, and playwright), and Mulk Raj Anand (an Indian writer). Less known at the time participants included Ousmane Sembène (a Senegalese novelist and filmmaker), Pramoedya Ananta Toer (an Indonesian author), Mário Coelho Pinto de Andrade (an Angolan poet and politician), and Marcelino dos Santos (a Mozambican poet, revolutionary, and politician).

The Association was working toward building a literary alliance between African and Asia independent from the publishing of the Western World and the Soviet Union provided material support to achieve the goal, such as subsidizing the Association’s literary magazine Lotus (1968-1991). Works of African and Asian writers were published in French, English, and Arabic for the audience of the two continents.

About a month before the Afro-Asian Writers Association conference, Tashkent hosted another international event, the First International Festival of African and Asian Film. Official records stated that twenty-two countries participated, mainly from East and South Asia, however, the event was poorly documented and almost erased from history.

Ten years later, in 1968, Tashkent got a second chance and opened the First Biannual Tashkent Festival of Asian and African Cinema. In 1976, the festival expanded to include Latin American nations (even though the films participated from the beginning) and officially became The Tashkent Festival of Asian, African and Latin American Cinema.

Mueda: Memory and Massacre (1979) by Ruy Guerra,  a Mozambican-Brazilian director, was first recognized at the Tashkent Festival in 1980 before its premiere in Europe.

The choice to host these events in Tashkent was not accidental, it was a way for the Soviet government to parade its accomplishment in merging Western civilization and Eastern worlds. The festival focused on the developing cinemas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America to politically influence Third world countries; its slogan was “For peace, social progress, and freedom of the peoples”.

The Moscow International Film Festival, established in 1959, followed the same agenda, actively screening and awarding films from developing nations.

Lucia (1968) by Humberto Solas, a Cuban filmmaker, received the Golden Prize, the top award at the Moscow Film Festival in 1969.

Emitaï (1971) by Ousmane Sembène, a Senegalese filmmaker, won a Silver prize in the Moscow Film Festival in 1971.

The Abandoned Field: Free Fire Zone (1979) by Nguyễn Hồng Sến, a Vietnamese director. The film won the Golden Prize at the Moscow Film Festival in 1981.

Cuba and the Soviet Union.

Cuban-Soviet relationship deserves a special mention. Most of the articles I came across focus on the political and economical exchange and very little is said about culture. The success of the Cuban revolution motivated the Soviet Union to fund the Institute of Latin American Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1961. Recognizing the geopolitical value of Cuba, the Soviet Union actively participated in the development of the new regime, and, as it was mentioned earlier in my research, Soviet leaders clearly understood the power of cinema as a political tool, so many Soviet films were imported to Cuba. There is almost no evidence of it in the academic papers, scholars such as Michael Chanan (The Cuban Image: Cinema and Cultural Politics in Cuba), Peter B. Schumann (Kino in Cuba), Alberto Elena, and Marina Díaz López (The Cinema of Latin America) link Italian neo-realism, French New Wave, Cinéma Vérité to the evolution of Cuban cinema, completely ignoring the Soviet influence.

Soon after the revolution, the Cuban film industry was nationalized. There were very few national films produced; the films from the Soviet bloc filled Cuban TV screens. On November 5, 1959, Battleship Potemkin (1925) was shown on Cuban television, replacing American programs. Historical Soviet films were broadcasted on only two Cuban channels every day, which showed the need to develop their national film industry.

Mario Rodríguez Alemán, a Cuban film critic, was instrumental in introducing the Soviet films to the Cuban audience and is considered to be the best foreign critic of Soviet cinema. He hosted a program on TV where he would introduce a film he chose with his analysis, screen it, and discuss it with the live audience afterward. He was very much interested in Soviet Cinema and was recognized for his work in promoting the Soviet films by the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR in 1982.

In the early 1960s, three films were co-produced by Cuba and the Soviet-bloc countries: ¿Para quién baila la Habana? (1962) with Czechoslovakia, Preludio 11 (1963) with East Germany, and Soy Cuba (1964) with The Soviet Union. All three films were not popular amongst Soviet and Cuban audiences and were almost forgotten; Soy Cuba was rediscovered three decades later.

The Soviet cartoons were a big part of Cuban television known as muñequitos. There was a specific time in the afternoon dedicated to The Children’s Hour program. Sometimes those muñequitos were used as a sort of punishment for children, parents would “threaten” to turn on the cartoons if kids misbehave. However, for the most part, it was a positive experience for the children, like for Aurora Jacome who many years after she left Cuba created Muñequitos Rusos blog “in an attempt to regain memories”, http://munequitosrusos.blogspot.com/; and when I googled Los Muñequitos Rusos, images of the cartoons I grew up with filled the screen.

The initial idea of Cuban and Soviet cinemas being linked developed after watching El Elefante y la Bicicleta (Cuba, 1994). It immediately reminded me of a Soviet classic,  Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future (USSR, 1973). The plots of these films were different, but both merged science/new technology and unexplained magic; both are similar, stylistically, exaggerated acting, satirical tone, use of music, and ideological messages.

Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future. Russian version with English subtitles:

Conclusion.

I need to mention that Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, Argentine filmmakers, who coined the term Third Cinema, categorized Soviet Cinema (alongside Hollywood Cinema) as First Cinema. However, they use only one example, the epic 4 part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace (1966-67) directed by Sergei Bondarchuk, ignoring other films produced in the film studios throughout the country before and after War and Peace. The Third World Cinema Committee created at the Third World Cinema meeting in 1973 in Algiers was designed to bring the nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America together and agreed to disregard and condemn Soviet Cinema. However, it was not practical for many Third World filmmakers to ignore Soviet festivals, so they continued participating.

Resources:

Десять фактов об агитпоездах (Ten facts about agit-trains). Tatyana Sohareva. December 12, 2017.
https://artguide.com/posts/1387

Soviet Agit-Trains from the Vertov Collection of the Austrian Film Museum. Adelheid Heftberger.
http://www.incite-online.net/heftberger4.html 

Tashkent ’68: A Cinematic Contact Zone. Rossen Djagalov and Masha Salazkina. Slavic Review. Vol. 75, No. 2 (Summer 2016), pp. 279-298

The Afro-Asian Writers Association and Soviet Engagement with Africa. Rossen Djagalov November 2, 2017.
https://www.aaihs.org/the-afro-asian-writers-association-and-soviet-engagement-with-africa/

Kinocuban: The Significance of Soviet and East European Cinemas for The CubanMoving Image. Vladimir Alexander Smith Mesa. November 2011.
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1336532/1/1336532.pdf

World Cinema at Soviet Festivals: Cultural Diplomacy and Personal Ties.  Elena Razlogova. November 8, 2019.
http://elenarazlogova.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Razlogova_World_cinema_at_Soviet_festivals.pdf

Cubans Finding Comfort, Nostalgia in Russian Products. Nora Gámez Torres. November 14, 2014.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article3936801.html

Dreaming in Russian – The Cuban Soviet Imaginary. Jacqueline Loss. University of Texas Press. May 2014.

From Internationalism to Postcolonialism: Literature and Cinema between the Second and the Third Worlds. Rossen Djagalov. McGill-Queen’s University Press. March 2020.