“Such is the Custom in VGIK.” Annotated Catalogue of Early Films from the Archive of Irina Zhigalko (part I)

Abstract

Publication of an annotated catalogue of early foreign and Russian films from the collection of Irina Zhigalko (1912–1976), an art history PhD, director, assistant to Mikhail Romm, and associate professor at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). The material will fill the existing gap in the knowledge of the cinematic repertoire of Russian and foreign films in the 1900s‑1910s. These materials are intended to help to more accurately determine the influence of French cinema on Russian / Soviet culture and domestic cinema. The Zhigalko archive, held by the State Central Film Museum, allows us today to open another important line of the teacher’s interests — collecting. The films that have been included in the annotated filmographic sheets published in Telekinet cannot be found in the well-known catalogues of silent films published in Russia to date. The published films are provided with annotations that allow you to get an impression of the topics and genres that are in demand among the audience. The point to note is that the children’s theme is featured very prominently in the works selected in the catalogue; this is especially important for analyzing the interest of Romm’s students in the culture of childhood and the fairy-tale genre. Popular science, educational and scientific films are quite widely presented, which probably made up for the shortage of similar Russian film products.

Keywords

• silent cinema
• french cinema
• children’s cinema
• popular science cinema
• pathé
• gaumont
• zhigalko
• romm