Efim Uchitel ^People

Uchitel studied in the department of camera operation at the Leningrad Institute of Motion-picture Engineers from 1930 to 1935. He was among the camera-men who shot the film The Mannerheim Line (1940). During the second World War (1941-1945) he was a cameraman at the front and helped shoot and direct seve-ral films, including Struggling Leningrad (1942) Breaking the Blockade of Leningrad (1944), Berlin (1945), and Victory March (1945). More recently, Uchitel' has direc- ted The Russian Character (1958), Daughters of Russia (1960), Peace on Your House (1961), Workers' Stories (1965), Leningrad the Hero-City (1974), and Fidelity (1974). The films Struggling Leningrad and The Klooga Death Camp (1944) were shown as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials. One of his most famous works is the film about the northern capital's defense from the Nazis - Leningrad in a struggle. After the end of the War, it was shown as one of the convictive materials at the Nurnberg trial for Nazi war criminals. In spite of his surname - which means a teacher in Russian - Efim Uchitel had never taught. But those were his works which became the foundation of what is now called the Leningrad school ofnon-fictional movies. In 1964, Uchitel became artistic director of thefirst creativeassociation at the Leningrad Documentary Film Studio. A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR (1943), and the Vasilev Brothers State Prize of the RSFSR (1967), he was awarded the Order of Lenin and others.