Oleg Vidov: how an Australian director’s film touched the Moscow Film Festival

Oleg Vidov, Russian metinee idol, fugitive and Los Angeles animation distributor, is the subject of Nadia Tass's feature documentary.
Oleg vidov

For screen creators and cineastes, watching films from countries with alien ideologies is either fascinating or disgusting. The Nazi feature films of the 1930’s are crimes against humanity.

But the Communist cinema of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries gripped audiences who loved film from the 1920’s on. After all, Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Dziga-Vertov were the first intellectuals of film form and their work burst with new ideas. Despite brutal censorship, Mosfilm routinely exported beautifully made films until the fall of the USSR. Festival audiences rolled in them like dogs in snow. 

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David Tiley was the Editor of Screenhub from 2005 until he became Content Lead for Film in 2021 with a special interest in policy. He is a writer in screen media with a long career in educational programs, documentary, and government funding, with a side order in script editing. He values curiosity, humour and objectivity in support of Australian visions and the art of storytelling.