Dziga Vertov, Polish-Russian director and screenwriter (d. 1954)
Dziga Vertov (Russian: Дзига Вертов, born David Abelevich Kaufman, Russian: Дави́д А́белевич Ка́уфман, and also known as Denis Kaufman; 2 January 1896 [O.S. 21 December 1895] – 12 February 1954) was a Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsreel director, as well as a cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the cinéma vérité style of documentary movie-making and the Dziga Vertov Group, a radical film-making cooperative which was active from 1968 to 1972. He was a member of the Kinoks collective, with Elizaveta Svilova and Mikhail Kaufman.
In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, critics voted Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929) the eighth-greatest film ever made.Vertov's younger brothers Boris Kaufman and Mikhail Kaufman were also noted filmmakers, as was his wife, Yelizaveta Svilova.