Dimitri Kirsanoff

Birthday: 1899-03-06
Deathday: 1957-02-11
Birthplace: Tartu, Estonia
Gender: Male

Dimitri Kirsanoff (Russian: Дими́трий Кирса́нов) was an early filmmaker, considered part of the French Impressionist movement in film. He is known for his inexpensively made experimental films.

Kirsanoff was born Markus David Sussmanovitch Kaplan in Tartu (then Juryev), Estonia, then Russian Empire in 1899 to Lithuanian Jewish parents. In the early 1920s he moved to Paris and became involved in cinema through playing cello in the orchestra at showings. He began making films on his own, and never worked with a production company. Kirsanoff was at the forefront of Parisian avant-garde filmmaking thanks to works such as Ménilmontant (1926), which combined soviet style montage with hand-held camerawork and lyrically composed static shots. Kirsanoff's early silent films, many starring his first wife Nadia Sibirskaia, are considered his best works. With the coming of sound the quality of his output declined, though he continued to direct commercial ventures into the 1950's. He was married to the actress Nadia Sibirskaïa who starred in several of his early films. His second marriage was to editor Monique Kirsanoff.

Credits

Year Title
1957-01-25 Miss Catastrophe
1956-06-14 Tonight the Skirts Fly
1955-05-10 Le Crâneur
1953-02-13 The Midnight Witness
1951-01-01 Death of a Stag
1950-11-13 Backward Season
1950-07-19 Various Facts About Paris
1946-10-31 Sunless Neighborhood
1946-01-01 Two Friends
1938-08-04 The Midnight Airplane
1938-08-03 The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
1937-05-14 Franco de port
1936-11-04 Young Girl in the Garden
1936-01-01 The Fountain of Arethusa
1935-01-01 The Cradles
1935-01-01 Scrupule
1934-11-23 The Kidnapping
1929-01-01 Autumn Mists
1928-06-03 Sables
1927-01-01 Destin
1926-01-02 Ménilmontant
1924-01-25 L'Ironie du destin