Russian Filmmaker To Speak at Village Books

BY MELISSA BEAL Palisadian-Post Contributor ‘It is my duty to tell about what I see and feel. Not that what I see and what I feel is so important,’ writes Marina Goldovskaya in her memoir ‘Woman with a Movie Camera: My Life as a Russian Filmmaker (University of Texas, 2006). ‘I am but a small particle in a huge world, but that world is reflected in me.’ Goldovskaya, who was the first woman in Russia and possibly the world to combine being a writer, director, cinematographer and producer, will be appearing at Village Books on Swarthmore at 7:30 p.m. next Thursday, March 1. As one of Russia’s most famous documentary filmmakers, she has made more than 30 documentaries including award-winning films ‘Solovki Power (1987),’ ‘The Shattered Mirror (1992)’ and ‘The House on Arbat Street (1993),’ and more than a 100 television programs for Russian, American, Japanese and European television. Goldovskaya’s memoir begins with her unique upbringing in Russia. Born on July 15, 1941 during an air raid, her childhood was defined by the Stalinist era. Under Soviet rule, working professionals commonly lived among people in similar fields. Since her father was the technology deputy for the minister of cinema and a teacher at the Moscow Film School, she was raised in the ‘House of Filmmakers.’ All the residents in her building were prominent film directors, producers, actors, writers and cinematographers. ‘Film was the most important of all arts,’ Goldovskaya said in an interview with the Palisadian-Post, and because film was also an influential tool for Soviet ideology, filmmakers were treated particularly well. In her memoir she describes her many weekends at a sort of filmmakers’ resort outside of Moscow. ‘Perhaps this is why, as a child, I had already developed such a strong feeling for the art of filmmaking. I had the privilege of growing up among the people who shaped this art from the beginning,’ Goldovskaya writes. She began her film career as a child at the resort, where she was given the opportunity to translate films from English and French to Russian. She knew then that she wanted to become a cinematographer. ‘I was in love with films,’ she said. However, cinematography was not a woman’s profession. Even her father discouraged her from studying cinematography and film. It made no difference to Goldovskaya, though, and she took the advice of one of her father’s female students, who told her: ‘Don’t listen to your father. It is the best profession in the world.’ After she completed college at the Moscow Film School in 1963, Goldovskaya began working as a cinematographer for Soviet television news. Soon, she wanted to work on films. ‘When I find an interesting character I keep thinking, what can I do with him?’ she said about her need to document people’s lives. However, few directors wanted to work with a female cinematographer. When she approached an old friend about working with him he joked that her place was in the kitchen. ‘Why should I listen to that? I’ll try myself,’ she said, beginning her career as a director. Afterwards she could not imagine working with someone else. The sense of freedom and independence she felt directing her own film was too important. Gender barriers were not the only problems Goldovskaya encountered as a filmmaker in Russia. ‘I was working in the heart of the brainwashing machine,’ she said. ‘Everything in our country had to be bright to show that the bright future of communism was very close.’ However, she worked through it and continued to create many captivating documentaries. ‘I just had to follow my instinct. Life was unfolding in front of my camera and I followed it with my camera.’ Goldovskaya now lives with her husband, producer George Herzfeld, in Westwood. They married in 1992, but she did not become a permanent resident of California until 1996, when she became a tenured professor at UCLA, where she teaches and heads the documentary film program. In their first four years of marriage, she traveled frequently between the U.S. and Russia lecturing at universities and working on her films. She is currently awaiting funding for her next documentary film project (the subject of which is still a secret), and she hopes to begin as soon as possible. ‘There are so many interesting things in the world,’ she said. ‘Without making a film, life is very boring.’