Elizaveta Svilova – Women Film Pioneers Project
4/7/2020 Elizaveta Svilova – Women Film Pioneers Project Elizaveta Svilova Also Known As: Elizaveta Schnitt, Elizaveta Vertova-Svilova, Yelizaveta Ignatevna Svilova, Yelizaveta Svilova Lived: September 5, 1900 - November 11, 1975 Worked as: archivist, assistant director, co-director, director, editor Worked In: Russia, Soviet Union by Eva Molcard A film editor, director, writer, and archivist, Elizaveta Svilova was an intellectual and creative force in early Soviet montage. She is best known for her extensive collaborations with her husband, Dziga Vertov, on seminal early documentary films, and especially for instances when she appeared on camera demonstrating the act of editing itself. The fact that Vertov’s filmic theory and practice focused on montage as the fundamental guiding force of cinema confirms the crucial role Svilova’s groundbreaking experimentation played in early Soviet film and global film history. Her career, which spanned far beyond her collaborations with her husband, significantly advanced the early principles of cinematic montage. Svilova was born Elizaveta Schnitt in Moscow on September 5, 1900, to a railway worker and a housewife. She began working in the cinema industry at age twelve, apprenticing in a film laboratory where she cleaned, sorted, and selected film and negatives (Kaganovsky 2018). This sort of work, seen as akin to domestic chores like sewing, weaving, and other “feminine” activities, was often the domain of women in film industries worldwide. At age fourteen, Svilova was hired as an assistant editor at Pathé’s Moscow studio, where she cut and photo-printed film until 1918. She worked as an editor for Vladimir Gardin while at Pathé, and edited iconic early films such as Vsevolod Meyerhold’s 1915 adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
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