Lilya Kaganovsky, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, has received an NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Summer Stipend for her project, “Fifty Years of Soviet Women’s Cinema, 1929–1979,” which examines the largely invisible role women filmmakers played in the establishment and development of cinema in the USSR. By focusing on a wide range of women’s cinematic production and looking closely at the work of directors, cinematographers, and film editors, this project resituates the work of women within the Soviet cinema industry, providing a new historical and theoretical lens through which to understand their contributions.
Summer stipends support full-time work by a scholar on a humanities project for a period of two months. Kaganovsky’s award will enable her to research and write the chapter on female documentary cinematographers during WWII – Ottilia Reizman and Maria Sukhova, the only two women out of 100 camera operators who worked at the front – and their exceptional role in documenting Nazi atrocities, including the Holocaust and the liberation of the camps.
See the full story on the SLCL website.