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Aesthetic innovation and the politics of film production at Lenfil´m, 1968-1991
Supervisor: Dr Philip Cavendish
My project investigates experimentation in Leningrad film
during this period, analysing creative and executive production strategies at
Lenfil´m as a 'working studio' and a site of convergence for different strands
of Soviet cultural life. This interdisciplinary project constitutes a textual
and archival history of Lenfil´m during one of its most heterogeneous periods
of output. It examines the role of studio management in shaping the studio's
culture of production and its professional networks, as well the relationship
of this executive arm to the local Communist party and the central authorities
at Goskino. Moreover, my research aims to historicise Lenfil´m production
through close readings of cinema produced by the First Creative Unit and
subsequently the Studio of First and Experimental Film, studying their
reception and impact upon the political and cultural standing of Lenfil´m. It
also asks how we might read examples of Lenfil´m production as surface
manifestations of a city culture that took advantage of its peripheral,
provincial status, and of Leningrad filmmakers' historical traditions of
experimentation going back to the 1920s, to allow filmmakers to innovate
aesthetically and reengage with certain strategies of the modernist
avant-gardes.
Contact: alexander.graham@ucl.ac.uk
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