Iskusstvo Kino — LLMpedia

Contents

Iskusstvo Kino Iskusstvo Kino is a Russian film magazine founded in 1931 that became a central forum for cinematic criticism and theory in the Soviet Union and post‑Soviet Russia. It engaged with international and domestic film culture through coverage of filmmakers, festivals, studios, and film movements, positioning itself alongside periodicals such as Cahiers du Cinéma, Sight & Sound, Positif, Film Comment, and Kinovedcheskie zapiski. The magazine bridged debates involving figures associated with Mosfilm, Lenfilm, DEFA, Tosca (opera reference), Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, and Berlin International Film Festival.

History

Founded in 1931 during the era of Joseph Stalin, the magazine operated throughout the Soviet Union alongside institutions like the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography and studios such as Mosfilm and Lenfilm. During the Great Patriotic War the publication navigated wartime censorship and shifted coverage to wartime subjects and documentary practice linked to figures such as Esfir Shub and Dziga Vertov. In the postwar period the journal intersected with debates following the Thaw (Khrushchev era) and engaged with filmmakers including Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Parajanov, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Alexander Dovzhenko. In the late Soviet period the magazine addressed works by Nikita Mikhalkov, Andrei Konchalovsky, and directors associated with Lenfilm and independent studios, and it responded to the collapse of the Soviet Union by covering transitions affecting Gosfilmofond and emerging post‑Soviet production.

The editorial line combined formalist analysis with politically aware commentary, referencing debates spurred by theorists and practitioners such as Vladimir Mayakovsky (poetic influence), Béla Balázs, Siegfried Kracauer, André Bazin, Louis Delluc, and Soviet montage theory proponents like Lev Kuleshov. Reviews and essays situated Soviet film within transnational networks including coverage of Italian Neorealism, French New Wave, New German Cinema, and directors like Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wim Wenders. The magazine published theoretical pieces on film form, auteurs, and genre with reference to festivals such as Cannes Film Festival and institutions including Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and Locarno Film Festival.

Over decades contributors included prominent critics and scholars linked to Soviet and global cinema: editors and writers analogous to figures in film criticism such as Sergei Yutkevich (filmmaker/critic overlap), Veniamin Dorman, Ilan Marek, and scholars with ties to VGIK and Gosfilmofond. The magazine ran essays on the work of internationally renowned directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, Ingmar Bergman, Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Pedro Almodóvar, and Wong Kar-wai, while publishing archival studies about figures such as Lev Kuleshov, Dmitri Shostakovich (music relations), Mikhail Romm, and Grigori Kozintsev.

Published in Moscow, the magazine circulated through Soviet distribution networks tied to organizations like the Ministry of Culture of the USSR, Sovexportfilm (distribution ties), and later through Russian cultural institutions and booksellers connected to Russian State Library and Gosfilmofond. It appeared alongside international journals available at festivals and cultural centers such as British Film Institute venues, the Cinémathèque Française, Museum of Modern Art, and cinema societies in cities like Paris, New York City, Berlin, and Tokyo.

Iskusstvo Kino documented and commented on award winners from festivals and prize bodies including Cannes Film Festival winners like Palme d'Or recipients, Venice Film Festival Golden Lion laureates, Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear winners, and national honors such as USSR State Prize and later Golden Eagle Awards and Nika Awards. The magazine itself and its contributors received recognition at film criticism associations and cultural institutions, with contributors participating in juries at festivals including Cannes Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, and Venice Film Festival.

The publication shaped discourse on auteurism, montage theory, and national cinemas, influencing critics, filmmakers, and scholars across networks connected to VGIK, Mosfilm, Lenfilm, Cannes Film Festival, and academic departments at universities like Moscow State University and international film studies programs at University of California, Los Angeles and New York University. Its reception ranged from official endorsement in Soviet cultural policy periods to critical contestation during reform eras linked to figures like Mikhail Gorbachev and the policies of Perestroika and Glasnost.

Back issues and archival materials have been preserved in institutions and archives such as Gosfilmofond, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, and collections at the British Film Institute and Cinémathèque Française. Digitization initiatives have involved collaborations with research libraries, university collections, and international partners including Harvard University, Yale University, and the Library of Congress to make historical content accessible to scholars and cinephiles.

Category:Film magazines Category:Magazines established in 1931