Ilya Petrovich Kopalin (Russian: Илья́ Петро́вич Копа́лин; 1900–1976) was a Soviet film director remembered for his documentaries. His most famous footage is that of Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference and that of Yuri Gagarin's space flight.
Life
He was born the son of a peasant on 2 August 1900 in the village of Pavlovskaya, Zvenigorod on the outskirts of Moscow. In his youth he worked in a factory in Moscow. After October 1917 he trained first as a land surveyor then as a pilot. A chance meeting with Dziga Vertov led him instantly into an interest in the cinema. Aged 24 he went to work for Vertov as a camera-man, working on films such as Kinoglaz, but later would work independently. His early films look at country life and agriculture in the newly created USSR.
His work gained him six Stalin Prizes and the Order of Lenin. He died in Moscow on 12 June 1976.
Filmography
- Moscow (1927)
- For the Harvest (1929)
- Fifteen Years of Soviet Cinematography (1933)
- Engineers of the Human Soul (1934) – a documentary recording the First Congress of Soviet Writers
- Abyssinia (1935)
- China's Rebuff (1937)
- Ma Dunae (On the Danube) (1940) – Stalin Prize 1941
- Rout of the German Troops at Moscow (1941)
- Stalin's Speech of November 6, 1942 (1943)
- Moscow Strikes Back (1942) – Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
- Crimea Conference (1945)
- Liberated Czechoslovakia (1945)
- Victory Day Country (1948)
- New Albania (1949)
- Man Conquers Nature (1950)
- Albania (1953)
- Great Farewell (1953)
- For Peace and Friendship (1954)
- Songs over the Vistula (1955)
- Festival Melody (1955)
- Warsaw Meeting (1956)
- Lulz Shippers (1959)
- Destiny of a Great City (1961)
- First Flight to the Stars (1961) – a chronicle of Yuri Gagarin's space flight
- Tocsin of Peace (1963)
- Qunetra Ruins Accused (1974)
References
- Peter Rollberg (2009). Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema. US: Rowman / Littlefield. pp. 362–364. ISBN 978-0-8108-6072-8.
- ^ Soviet Calendar 1917–1947, Foreign Publishing House, Moscow 1947
- "Ilya Kopalin". IMDb.
- "Kinoglaz (1924)". BFI. Archived from the original on October 13, 2016.
- Sergei Yutkevich. Film Encyclopedic Dictionary (1987) p. 209.
External links
- Ilya Kopalin at IMDb
- Ilya Kopalin at the British Film Institute
- (in Russian) Разгром немецких войск под Москвой (Moscow Strikes Back) (1942) on YouTube – Duration: 1:06:21
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- 1900 births
- 1976 deaths
- People from Istrinsky District
- People from Zvenigorodsky Uyezd (Moscow Governorate)
- Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
- Soviet cinematographers
- Soviet film directors
- Soviet film editors
- Soviet documentary film directors
- People's Artists of the USSR
- People's Artists of the RSFSR
- Recipients of the Stalin Prize
- Recipients of the Order of Lenin
- Grand Crosses of the Order of the White Lion
- Burials at Kuntsevo Cemetery
- Russian film director stubs