Mikhail Kalatozov

Mikhail Kalatozov (born Mikheil Kalatozishvili) was born into a noble family in Tbilisi in 1903. While working in Georgian film as a cameraman and assistant director, he came under the tutelage of avant-garde luminaries Sergei Tretyakov, Lev Kuleshov, Viktor Shklovsky, and Esfir Shub. His directorial debut, Salt for Svanetia (1930) was a groundbreaking ethnographic documentary that deployed many formal innovations. After having moved to Russia before the war, Kalatozov became a household name thanks to his four final features: The Cranes Are Flying (1957), The Unsent Letter (1959), I Am Cuba (1964), and The Red Tent (1969). The first three of these were made in collaboration with the cinematographer Sergey Urusevsky and famous for their radical camerawork. The Cranes Are Flying was the only Soviet film ever to win the Palme d’Or.