DOCUMENTARY FILMS

DOCUMENTARY FILMS, a type of moving pictures which are created by editing clips and photographs of authentic events and persons and presenting a visual embodiment of such and their interpretation in the form of a narration. First documentary films about Bashkortostan were shot in 1909 by a documentary chronicler V.L.Metenkov (Yekaterinburg): The Views of the Urals and The Development of the Gold Mines. The popular science of Kumys (1915) was released by the Moscow branch of the French company named Gomon. Another documentary titled Feather Grass Steppes (1916) was the film of the first Russian film entrepreneur, A.A.Khanzhonkov. In 1923, a series of documentary films about the restoration work in the industrial zone of Bashkortostan and Chelyabinsk Obl. was created. The headquarters of the People’s Educational Studio filmed documentaries of the Meeting of the Komsomol of Bashkiria, the May Day Celebrations in Ufa, and the Sabantuy Celebration. In the 1930s, the predominant genre in documentary film becomes cinematic essays the main theme of which was industrialization as well as social and cultural life of the republic. Regular filming in Bashkortostan began after the opening in 1932 of Ufa Studio and the Committee on Cinematic Chronicles under the leadership of the Committee of People’s Commissars of the USSR. In the years of the Great Patriotic War, news stories became the main material for the development of the republican cinematic journalism. Since the end of the 1940s the social economical and cultural life of the republic was covered in the All Union newsreels. The rebuilding of the people’s industry in the republic in the postwar years was illustrated in the film Soviet Bashkiria (1949). The first color version of the film Soviet Bashkiria (1951) was included in the Kinoatlas of the USSR. The development of the oil industry in the republic and the associated transformations in the region were reflected in the films titled: The Oilmen of Bashkiria (1952), The Deep Oil of Bashkiria (1983), etc. The use of cinematic shoots in combination with various forms of dramatic material made it possible to study individual characters in a number of film galleries about M.G.Gareyev, M.Karim, etc, which were made by Moscow, Leningrad and Sverdlovsk filmmakers. In the late 1980s, filmmakers again turn to the genre of film journalism with such cinematic works as How to Become an Extremist and Hostages (both – in 1989). Since 1967, documentary films were also made by the State TV and Radio Company Bashkortostan, since the beginning of the 1970s – by various amateur film studios, since 1990s – by Bashkortostan Film Studio. Ref. Television films.