Dimitri Kirsanoff (6 March 1899 – 11 February 1957) was an early filmmaker

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, considered part of the French Impressionist

French Impressionist Cinema

French Impressionist Cinema, also referred to as the first avant-garde or narrative avant-garde, is a term applied to a group of French films and filmmakers of the 1920s....

 movement in film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

. He is known for his inexpensively made experimental film

Experimental film

Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...

s.

Early life

Kirsanoff was born Markus David Sussmanovitch Kaplan (Маркус Давид Зусманович Каплан) in Tartu

Tartu

Tartu is the second largest city of Estonia. In contrast to Estonia's political and financial capital Tallinn, Tartu is often considered the intellectual and cultural hub, especially since it is home to Estonia's oldest and most renowned university. Situated 186 km southeast of Tallinn, the...

 (then Juryev), Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

, then Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 in 1899. In the early 1920s he moved to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and became involved in cinema through playing cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

 in the orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 at showings. He began making films on his own, and never worked with a production company.

Ménilmontant

Kirsanoff's best known work is Ménilmontant (1926), which takes its name from the Paris neighborhood of the same name

Ménilmontant

Ménilmontant is a neighbourhood of Paris, situated in the city's 20th arrondissement. It is affectionately known to locals as "Ménilmuche".-History:...

. The film is a silent

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

, but does not contain any intertitle

Intertitle

In motion pictures, an intertitle is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of the photographed action, at various points, generally to convey character dialogue, or descriptive narrative material related to, but not necessarily covered by, the material photographed.Intertitles...

s. It begins with a flurry of quick close-up

Close-up

In filmmaking, television production, still photography and the comic strip medium a close-up tightly frames a person or an object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium shots and long shots . Close-ups display the most detail, but they do not include the broader scene...

 shots

Shot (film)

In film, a shot is a continuous strip of motion picture film, created of a series of frames, that runs for an uninterrupted period of time. Shots are generally filmed with a single camera and can be of any duration. A shot in production, defined by the beginning and end of a capturing process, is...

 depicting the axe murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 of the parents of the protagonist

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

s, two girls. As young women, they are portrayed by Nadia Sibirskaïa, Kirsanoff's first wife, and Yolande Beaulieu; their mutual love interest is played by Guy Belmont. The film uses many other techniques that were relatively new at the time, including double exposure

Multiple exposure

In photography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more individual exposures to create a single photograph. The exposure values may or may not be identical to each other.-Overview:...

.

Filmography

• L'ironie du destin (1923)
• Ménilmontant (1926)
• Sables (1927)
• Destin (1927)
• Brumes d'automne (1929)
• Rapt: la séparation des races (1934)
• Les berceaux (1935)
• Visages de France (1936)
• La fontaine d'Aréthuse (1936)
• La jeune fille au jardin (1936)
• Franco de port (1937)
• La plus belle fille du monde ne peut donner que ce qu'elle a (1938)
• L'avion de minuit (1938)
• Quartier sans soleil (1939, released 1945)
• Deux amis (1946)
• Faits divers à Paris (1950)
• Arrière-saison (1950)
• La mort du cerf: une chasse à courre à Villiers-Cotterets (1951)
• Le témoin de minuit (1953)
• Le crâneur (1955)
• Ce soir les jupons volent (1956)
• Miss Catastrophe (1957)

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