Kino Eye

This landmark documentary by cinematic visionary, Dziga Vertov, promotes his then new filmmaking movement of the same name – Kino Eye (Киноглаз).

Kino Eye is both a film technique and a film movement developed by Vertov. The name refers to capturing film that, instead of imitating what the human eye sees, captures what he believed to be “inaccessible to the human eye.”

Such a movement was completely different from the narrative cinema that dominated the era. Vertov instead hoped that by assembling and editing various fragments of film into a montage, he could create a new, previously unseen truth.

Vertov would go on to perfect this experimental technique in his 1929 masterpiece, Man With a Movie Camera. Still, Kino Eye will reward you as a fascinating insight into Vertov’s imagination. On top of that, if you watch both works, you’ll appreciate being better able to recognize the improvements in Vertov’s genius over time.

• 1920s
• English subtitles
• Soviet Union