Aleksandr Medvedkin
Biography
Aleksandr Ivanovich Medvedkin was a Soviet Russian film director, best known for his 1935 film Happiness. His life and art are the subject of Chris Marker's documentary films, The Train Rolls On (1971) and The Last Bolshevik (1992). He travelled around Russia in his Kinopoezd, a film-train, in which he carried film equipment and shot movies in Kolkhozy, which he would then screen there.
Known For & Full Filmography5 Titles
Movie - 2011, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
A documentary about the Armenian avant-garde filmmaker, Artavazd Pelešjan.
Movie - 1971, 2h 15m • as Himself
This half-hour documentary by Chris Marker explores Aleksandr Medvedkin’s 1930s “Cine-Train,” a mobile film studio equipped with cameras, editing rooms, animation stations, and a laboratory. Traveling across the Soviet countryside, the train’s crew documented agricultural and industrial life—from Ukrainian harvests to southern steelworks—while living and working in cramped shared quarters.
Movie - 1994, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
A documentary on Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Medvedkin, examining his tumultuous career, the rediscovery of his masterpiece Happiness, and Russia's struggles over the course of the 20th Century.
Movie - 1984, 2h 15m • as Self
The director's reflections on the modern politics of the Reagan administration.
Movie - 1976, 2h 15m • as Narrator
A full-length documentary film directed by Alexander Medvedkin tells about the nature of Maoism, the events in China in the 1960s and early 1970s