At the Turning Point of Historical Eras: Metamorphoses of the Ural Cinema

Abstract

The study is based on the historical transformations of the Sverdlovsk Film Studio and the analysis of the period of its highest heyday. Created as a project of Stalin’s cultural policy in accordance with the Order of the Committee for Cinematography Affairs under the USSR Council of People’s Commissars on February 9, 1943, the film studio has experienced a lot: the process of its formation and adaptation in the artistic culture of the Urals, the period of “low-cartography”, the period of creative take-off in the 1960s — 1980s, and even the state of “clinical death”. Revealing the paradoxes of its development, the author defines the ideological, artistic, thematic and aesthetic traditions that distinguish the creative potential of the Ural cinema from the films of other domestic studios. The 80th anniversary of the Sverdlovsk Film Studio is a date that makes it possible to comprehend the path that the Ural cinematography took, which in its heyday really competed with both Mosfilm and Lenfilm, enriching the cultural life not only on the regional, but also on the national level.