supervarskvlavi safrangeTi 2012

duction processes and define national policy and ideology of
cinematography. Thus, it was clear that all independent filmmakers,
private film companies and documentary filmmakers were
completely excluded from this area.
The Communist Party meeting on 15-21 March in 1928, among
other agendas it also discussed cinema industry issues which
turned out to be a significant event for the cinema industry. Local
industries developed their five year plan according to the directives
of party. The Communist Party clearly outlined a course for
development of the Soviet cinema. Among the major aims were:
to bring cinema closer to masses and increase its function maximally
in cultural revolution. The party perceived cinema as a tool
for rising political awareness of masses and for achieving the Party’s
objectives and making it its real motto. Therefore, contents of
film production should have undergone fundamental changes.
Industry took a task of “revitalizing a repertoire”.
To achieve the aims listed above it was necessary to promote
documentary cinema and kulturfilms along with feature films.
The latter were recognized as significant in fulfilling the Party’s
aims.
According to a number of films produced before 1928 Sakhkinmretsvi
occupied the fourth place in overall Soviet cinema industry,
amounting to almost 12% of all production in Soviet cinema
organizations.
Instructions given to the local film companies of all Soviet republics
including Sakhkinmretsvi, to create and develop documentary-newsreel
section, resulted in kulturfilms boom across
the Soviet Union, where almost everything that went beyond
feature films was called kulturfilm. Between the late 20-ies and
beginning of 30-ies young cinema enthusiasts created numerous
kulturfilms at the Georgian State film studio. Today they can be
considered the excellent examples of this genre.
BODY/MACHINE
Soviet approach to mechanization was officially declared as
something that “eases labor”, “raises material and cultural levels of
a working class” and “improves labor conditions and accelerates
development”. Soviet ideologists claimed that unlike capitalist
mechanization the Soviet approach did not imply domination by
capital over labor; rather on the contrary, it aimed at social wellbeing
of a working class and attempted to completely exclude
exploitation of peoples. Along with other Soviet filmmakers two
early films by Kote Mikaberidze and Siko Dolidze describe need
for new tractors, combines and other modern equipment and introduction
of new techniques. Main idea of these films is in the
first place, saving human energy and time. Treating technique as
fetish was familiar theme in western European avant-garde cine-
ma, modern art and literature. However, unlike western approach
Soviet cinematography’s enthusiasm and excitement about machinery
and automation has ideological connotations.
The 1920-ies witnessed huge propaganda about use of mechanized
procedures in collective farms created in the course of collectivization.
Documentary and feature films actively joined the
campaign. A generalized and perhaps the most popular image
of this new theme in Soviet cinema history is Sergei Eisenstein’s
milk separator that would be borrowed by many cinematographers
after his GENERAL LINE. One of them is a filmmaker Siko
Dolidze whose film THE EARTH’S IS CALLING will be screened
within the frameworks of our programme. He used separator’s
image in his later film, LAST CRUSADERS.
Healthy, clean and well-kept body is being promoted in early Soviet
movies along with agitation about mechanized work. “Fighting
dirt” and hundredfold increase of health care becomes a part
of cultural revolution. Physical exercises should have become a
lifestyle for every ideal citizen and in this way reinforce a sense of
homeland service and responsibility in each of them. In their efforts
to create a new and strong human being the Soviet regime
became analogous to that of Nazi Germany. The second part of
the program offered by the National Archive (TEN MINUTES IN
THE MORNING by Aleksandre Jaliashvili and COLLECTIVE FARM-
ER’S HYGIENE by Vakhtang Shvelidze) covers the importance of
physical exercises and bodily activities and following hygienic
rules.
The new system needed thousands of machines and combines
just like it needed a well-functioning and organized body/machine.
Even a founder of scientific management of labour, Frederick
Taylor and American engineer Henry Ford observed that a human
body was a machine, although Russians went much further.
For a lead Soviet theoretician of scientific organization of labor
and founder of Central Institute for Labour, Aleksei Gastev, human
body was not a mere machine, but living machine deserving
good care for the benefit of production.
We thank Dimitri Jaliashvili for providing a photo of Alexandre
Jaliashvilli and Gia Gersamia for providing a photo of Vakhtang Shvelidze
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