Heroic Deed Among the Ice is a 1928 Soviet 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...

 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

. It is also known as Exploit on the Ice and Ice-Breaker Krassin. This film is the first collaboration between Georgi Vasilyev

Georgi Vasilyev

Georgi Nikolaevich Vasilyev was a Soviet film director, editor, and screenwriter. From 1928 to 1943 together with Sergei Vasilyev he co-directed several films, including an influential and critically acclaimed Chapaev...

 and Sergei Vasilyev

Sergei Vasilyev

Sergei Dmitrievich Vasilyev was a Soviet film director, editor, and screenwriter. From 1928 to 1943 together with Georgi Vasilyev he co-directed several films, including an influential and critically acclaimed Chapaev...

.

Subject

Heroic Deed Among the Ice details the mission of the ice-breaker Krasin

Krasin (1916 icebreaker)

The first icebreaker Krasin was built for the Imperial Russian Navy as Svyatogor. She had a long, distinguished career in rescue operations, as well as a pathfinder and explorer of the Northern Sea Route...

to rescue the crashed crew of Umberto Nobile

Umberto Nobile

Umberto Nobile was an Italian aeronautical engineer and Arctic explorer. Nobile was a developer and promoter of semi-rigid airships during the Golden Age of Aviation between the two World Wars...

's arctic airship "Italia"

Airship Italia

Airship Italia was a semi-rigid airship used by Italian engineer Umberto Nobile in his second series of flights around the North Pole.-Design and specifications:...

. The raw material shot without any plan by cameramen who accompanied Krasin was used by Georgi and Sergei Vasilyev to create a coherent and powerful narrative in the tradition of Soviet montage

Soviet montage theory

Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing...

 school. Heroic Deed was released in October 1928 and its success helped Georgi and Sergei Vasilyev to realize their ambition to direct.

All the editing notes by Vasilyevs survive and has been published but the film itself is partially lost

Lost film

A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...

.