{{short description|German-Russian film studio}} [[Image:Putevka v zhisn poster.jpg|thumb|250px|The first Soviet sound film, ''Road to Life'' (1931), was made by Mezhrabpomfilm.]] '''Mezhrabpomfilm''' ({{langx|ru|Межрабпомфильм}}), from the word ''film'', and the Russian acronym for Workers International Relief or Workers International Aid ({{langx|ru|Международная рабочая помощь}}, was a German-Russian film studio, formerly Mezhrabpom-Rus, from 1928-1936.<ref>{{cite book|title=Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema|author=Peter Rollberg|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2009|place=US|ISBN=978-0-8108-6072-8|pages=448–450}}</ref> Currently “Gorky Film Studio”
== History == The studio was founded in 1928 in Moscow on the basis of the disbanded joint-stock company Mezhrabpom-Rus from which he inherited two filming pavilions, a film equipment park and approved thematic plan.<ref>{{cite book |last=Болтянский |first=Григорий |date=1929 |title=Кино-cправочник // Межрабпом-фильм |trans-title= |url=https://viewer.rsl.ru/ru/rsl01008534507?page=125&rotate=0&theme=white |language=ru |location=М.- Л. |publisher=Теа-кино-печать |pages=119–127 |isbn= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522084100/https://viewer.rsl.ru/ru/rsl01008534507?page=125&rotate=0&theme=white |archive-date=2023-05-22 |access-date=2023-05-22 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref> After producing around 600 films the "international experiment was brutally ended eleven and fourteen years later by Hitler's and Stalin's regimes."<ref>Berlinale Retrospective 2012 ''The Red Dream Factory'', press release October 24, 2011 [https://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/2012/08_pressemitteilungen_2012/08_pressemitteilungen_2012detail_11220.html]</ref>
Classics of revolutionary cinema, such as Vsevolod Pudovkin's ''Storm Over Asia (1928)'' were made by Mezhrabpom-Film. Other significant films made by the studio include Yakov Protazanov's ''The White Eagle'' (1928) and ''St. Jorgen's Day'' (1930), Lev Kuleshov's ''Two-Buldi-Two'' (1929), Nikolai Ekk's ''Road to Life'' (1931), Margarita Barskaya's ''Torn Shoes'' (''Rvanye Bashmaki'' 1933), a drama about children set in Germany when the Nazis assumed power, and Aleksandr Andriyevsky's early science-fiction film ''Loss of Sensation'' (''Gibel Sensatsii'' 1935). The Soviet Union's first animated films, and first sound film, Nikolai Ekk's ''Road to Life'' (1931) were made by the studio.
One of Mezhrabpomfilm's last films was Gustav von Wangenheim's ''Fighters'' (1936), about German workers fighting the Nazi Brownshirts and the SS in 1933. It was made by German filmmakers and actors who had fled to Moscow to avoid Hitler's terror. Ironically, 2 actors working on the set were arrested during the filming and by the end of 1938 (during Stalin's terror years) two thirds of the film crew were arrested.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nE0BAwAAQBAJ&dq=mezhrabpomfilm+fighters&pg=PA89|title=Soviet Cinema: Politics and Persuasion Under Stalin|last=Miller|first=Jamie|date=2009-12-18|publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=9780857716934|language=en}}</ref>
In 1936, the company was dissolved, as it was regarded too independent and too influenced by foreigners. ''Rot-Front Studio'' became its successor, but in the same 1936 its name was changed to ''Soyuzdetfilm'' ({{langx|ru|Союздетфильм}}), the world's first film company devoted to films for children and teenagers, which in 1948 was renamed Gorky Film Studio.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Short|first1=K. R. M.|first2=Richard |last2=Taylor|year=1986|title=Soviet cinema and the international menace, 1928–1939|journal=Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television|volume=6 |issue= 2|pages=131–159|doi=10.1080/01439688600260171}}</ref>
right|250px|thumb|1928 ad for the Prometheus production division
Its German branch '''''Prometheus Film''''', produced some of the "socially committed cinematic art of the late Weimar Republic [Red Dream Factory productions] such as Phil Jutzi's work, Leo Mittler's ''Beyond the Street'' (''Jenseits der Strasse'' 1929), Slatan Dudow's ''Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World?'' (''Kuhle Wampe, oder: Wem gehört die Welt?'' 1932)[https://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/2012/08_pressemitteilungen_2012/08_pressemitteilungen_2012detail_11220.html] berlinale pressrelease], as well as two joint productions with Mezhrabpomfilm, before going bankrupt in 1932.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC26folder/GermCPKinocult1.html|title=German communist Kinokultur, pt.1, by Jan-Christopher Horak|website=www.ejumpcut.org|access-date=2017-02-03}}</ref>
Berlin's ''Bertz + Fischer'' published a book for a Retrospective - a programme of films which were presented at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival - in which German and Russian authors look at the studio and the aesthetics of the films produced there (Günter Agde, Alexander Schwarz (ed.): ''Die rote Traumfabrik: Meschrabpom-Film und Prometheus (1921–1936)''. Berlin: Bertz + Fischer 2012).{{Citation needed|date=August 2022}}
==See also== *Gorky Film Studio *''Carnival of Colors'' (1935)
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/berlinale-2012-the-reds-are-coming-to-moma-plus-perspektive-deutsches-kino-lineup MUBI, 10 January 2012: ''Berlinale 2012. The Reds are coming to MoMA!''] * [https://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/2012/08_pressemitteilungen_2012/08_pressemitteilungen_2012detail_11220.html berlinale pressrelease]
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Category:Weimar culture Category:Film production companies of Germany Category:Film production companies of Russia Category:German film studios Category:Communist Party of Germany