Ermler F.M. (1898-1967), film director

Categories / Art/Fine Arts/Personalia
ERMLER Friedrich Markovich (1898-1967, Leningrad), film director, People’s Artist of the USSR (1948). Studied acting at the Leningrad Institute of Screen Arts in 1923-24 and at the Film Academy in 1929-31. Worked at Sevzapkino Film Factory (today Lenfilm) from 1924. Founded the Experimental Film Workshop with E. Y. Ioganson. As early as the 1920s and early 1930s, he began advocating the beauty of a socialist film based on everyday life, defining the development of Soviet cinema with films including Katka’s Reinette Apples (1926), House in the Snowdrifts and Parisian Cobbler (both 1927), Fragment of an Empire (1929), and Counterplan (or Shame, 1932), one of the first Soviet sound films which was shot together with co-director with S. I. Yutkevich. He created the genre of political movies with films such as Peasants (1935) and Great Citizen (1937-39). Ermler’s She Defends Her Motherland (or No Greater Love, 1943) and Turning Point (1945), the latter was awarded the Grand National Prize at the first International Film Festival in Cannes in 1946, are considered to be among the greatest war films. His historic documentary Facing the Judgement of History was a new vision of the traditional political story. He used St. Petersburg in his films throughout 1920s, as well as in Counterplan, Unfinished Story (1955), First Day (1957), and Facing the Judgement of History. He was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1941, twice in 1946, and in 1951. He was buried at Bogoslovskoe Cemetery. He lived at 55 Kamennoostrovsky Avenue (memorial plaque installed).

Reference: Сэпман И. В. Кинематограф Фридриха Эрмлера // Эрмлер Ф. М. Документы. Статьи. Воспоминания. Л., 1974. С. 7-81.

I. V. Sepman. Ermler Friedrich Markovich
Ioganson Eduard Yu.
Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) Iosif Vissarionovich
Yutkevich Sergey Iosifovich
Kamennoostrovsky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 55
Сэпман И. В. Кинематограф Фридриха Эрмлера // Эрмлер Ф. М. Документы. Статьи. Воспоминания. Л., 1974 Lenfilm, Film Studio
Bogoslovskoe Cemetery