Anniversary of the Revolution

Name: Anniversary of the Revolution
Director: Dziga Vertov
Genre: Documentary, History
Released: 1918
Duration: 1 h 59 min
Cast: Vladimir Purishkevich, Alexander Kerensky, Mikhail Rodzianko, Alexander Guchkov, Nikolai V. Nekrasov

1918 Documentary History 119 minutes Directed by Dziga Vertov

About Anniversary of the Revolution

Dziga Vertov compiled newsreel footage, shot by other cameramen, into a documentary of the Russian Revolution. It runs from the February uprising through the October Revolution, on into the start of the Civil War, and closes on an early collective farm. Lenin, Kerensky, and Trotsky are among the figures on screen. Vertov, then 22, did not film it himself.

Cast & crew

More about Anniversary of the Revolution

The Russian title is Godovshchina revolyutsii. The Moscow Times, reporting the 2019 Moscow screening, says Vertov finished the film in October 1918, made it in a little more than a week with 20 editors, and that 30 copies were sent around the country. He gathered footage already shot by others. IMDb and Kinoafisha time the restored film at 119 minutes. The Moscow Times calls the original a two-hour film.

Themes

February to October 1917
The Civil War begins
A collective farm at the end
documentary
Lenin
newsreel
Vertov
1917

Background

The film was finished in October 1918, in time for the first anniversary of the October Revolution, and copies were sent out across the country.

Making

Vertov did not operate the camera. He cut other people's footage, with 20 editors, in a little more than a week.

Reviews

The Moscow Times described the restored film as static, with little of the later Vertov style, and said the 2019 audience was nearly standing room only.

Preservation

Thought lost for decades. Nikolai Izvolov reconstructed it from archive fragments. He estimates 2 percent is still missing. The restoration was shown in Moscow on 6 September 2019.

Notes

The picture was treated as lost. Historian Nikolai Izvolov reassembled it from pieces in the state film archives and estimates that 2 percent is still missing.
IMDb trivia places a restored premiere in Amsterdam in 2018.
The second Moscow premiere was 6 September 2019 at the Oktyabr Theater, with pianist Filipp Cheltsov. Theatrical showings followed on 12 September 2019.
At that Moscow screening some viewers applauded each Soviet leader and others shouted against the Communists.
IMDb notes that footage was later edited into The Brain of Soviet Russia (1919).