Hello,
I know a little about the problems that Soviet cinema faced in the 1920s and how the WIR programme set up by the German Communist Party raised funds partly to purchase film stock that more propaganda films may be made. However, I do not know where the USSR ended up manufacturing its own film stock and other essentials for a film industry.
Soviet and Warsaw Pact films have a distinctive look to them, especially after the transition to colour. This video accompanying the Soviet National Anthem illustrates what I mean.. Was there something in the manufacturing process that gave Soviet films that distinctive 'look' or is it just a kind of visual Orientalism that we in the West see them as deficient compared to comparable American, Japanese or British-made film stocks?
Thanks!
Was there something in the manufacturing process that gave Soviet films that distinctive 'look' or is it just a kind of visual Orientalism that we in the West see them as deficient compared to comparable American, Japanese or British-made film stocks?
Well, after WWII they took a factory (and staff) from Germany as part of reparations. It was the Filmfabrik Wolfen, part of AGFA (later called ORWO in East Germany):
... the Soviet military administration [...] dismantled large parts of the plant and moved it, with key German staff, to the Soviet Union, where it formed the basis for the Soviet colour film industry.
The German Wikipedia entry has a bit more information:
In Wolfen began in 1946 arranged by the SMAD dismantlements, at the same time seizing the production for reparations. 50% of the production facilities for the production of color film produced only since 1936 were dismantled and transported to Shostka / Ukraine to build the color film factory N°. 1 of the USSR there. (This was one of the few "successful" dismantlements, The majority of dismantled industrial plants were never taken in the Soviet Union in operation.) For this purpose, engineers and masters from Wolfen were committed, who traveled to the USSR, some with their families, there to take the assembly and start-up of production.