Amkino
| Amkino | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1927 |
| resolution | February 1940 |
| Reason for dissolution | Successor company Artkino Pictures |
| Seat | New York City |
| management | Dimitry Vassilev (until 1934) Vladimir I. Verlinsky (1934 to 1938) Nicola Napoli (1938 to 1940) |
| Branch | Film company |
Amkino was the official distributor for Russian films in the United States between 1927 and February 1940 .
Company history
Amkino was founded as a corporation in New York City in 1927 . She also bought films for the Soviet market. Dimitry Vassilev took over the management, who was replaced by Vladimir I. Verlinsky in 1934. Both were staunch Bolsheviks . The company worked closely with Soyuzkino , the Soviet film company. In 1938, Nicola Napoli, American communist and long-time treasurer of Amkino, became a producer.
The film company released around 15 to 20 films a year, as well as a few short films . The best-known and most successful imports included the armored cruiser Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein (1925), Golden Mountains (1931) by Sergei Jutkewitsch and The Oppenheim Family (1938) by Grigory Roshal . Most of the titles, however, were more widespread among film buffs and only circulated in a small circle, for example in the New York cinemas Acme, Cameo and Waldorf. The anti-communist currents in the United States caused problems for society . Also some films were not shown that were directed against the Third Reich , which was not yet perceived as a hostile nation in the 1930s. Still, fighters by Gustav von Wangenheim , Die Familie Oppenheim and Die Moorsoldaten by Alexander Macheret came to US cinemas. Some of these films have been banned by the Chicago Board of Censors .
Most of the films were shown outside the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America (MPDDA). The first film with an official rating was the controversial anti-Nazi film Professor Mamlock (1938). This only had to be shortened by a scene with a sexual allusion and a sadistic scene.
The documentary Russian Soil was nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film at the 1942 Academy Awards. There the company appeared as a production company after it had already been renamed Artkino Pictures in February 1940 .
Web links
- Amkino in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Anthony Slide: The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry . Scarecrow Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-8108-6636-2 , pp. 15 .
- ↑ a b Thomas Doherty: Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939 . Columbia University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-231-53514-4 , pp. 165-1196 .