Notes of a kinok: the notebooks and personal diaries of Dziga Vertov

Abstract

This Research Project for an Internship Abroad (BEPE) at the THALIM Unité Mixte de Recherche (CNRS - Sorbonne Nouvelle - ENS) has three main objectives. The first one is to allow for a close contact with Prof. Valérie Pozner, my proposed supervisor in France, a specialist in Soviet non-fiction cinema with large experience in studying the films and manuscripts of Dziga Vertov - the main object of my doctoral thesis. M. Pozner's main research topics (Soviet newsreel and documentary cinema, the representation of Jews in the Soviet cinema, the institutional history of the Soviet film industry, cultural exchanges between filmmakers and artists from other fields, such as the LEF, etc.) largely coincide with my own, and the experience of an internship by her side would be fundamental to further refine the methodology I have been developing in my current research. The second main objective is to expand my theoretical and bibliographical references, which would be achieved by different means: 1) by following the academic activities in THALIM, a mixed research unit with a multidisciplinary program of lectures and seminars on topics related either directly (e.g., Soviet and post-Soviet cinema; cultural exchanges between Europe and the USSR; the concept of the "interval", etc.) or indirectly to my current research; 2) by following the regular seminars organized by the Association Française de Recherche sur l'Histoire du Cinéma (AFRHC), in which M. Pozner currently serves as vice-president; 3) by conducting research in libraries and institutions such as the Cinémathèque Française and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, host to important collections of works on Soviet film and to Soviet-era film magazines and books. The third main objective of this internship would be to advance in the effort of internationalization of my research, through my participation in seminars and research groups in THALIM, the submission of an article to an academic French journal, and by the establishment and renewal of contacts with different Soviet film scholars in France. (AU)