Ilya Kopalin

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. ==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 second degree (1941) • Rout of the German Troops at Moscow (1941) – Stalin Prize first degree (1942) • ''Stalin's Speech of November 6, 1942'' (1943) • Moscow Strikes Back (1942) – Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature • Crimea Conference (1945) • Liberated Czechoslovakia (1945) – Stalin Prize second degree (1946) • Victory Day Country (1948) – Stalin Prize second degree (1948) • New Albania (1949) – Stalin Prize third degree (1949) • Man Conquers Nature (1950) – Stalin Prize third degree (1951) • 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==