Kinoks

The Kinoks (Russian: Киноки, romanized: kino-oki, lit. 'cinema-eyes') were a collective of Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s, consisting of Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova and Mikhail Kaufman.

According to Annette Michelson, Georges Sadoul states the collective was founded in 1922 ^[1] by Svilova, Vertov and Kaufman, and the painter Belyaev was a fourth member.^[2] However, in 1923 Svilova wrote an open letter to the journal LEF applying for admission to the Council of Three.^[3] Scholars have interpreted this as a publicity stunt "to provide exposure of their work and to raise awareness of their commitment to documentary cinema" ^[4][5] rather than an actual application, since Svilova had already been working with Vertov and Kaufman for several years. From 1922 to 1923 Vertov, Kaufman, and Svilova published a number of manifestos in avant-garde journals which clarified the Kinoks' positions vis-à-vis other leftist groups.

The Kinoks argued strongly for documentary cinema and the use of candid cameras and filming workers instead of using actors.^[6] They published a series of manifestos and statements in LEF, an avant-garde cinema journal.

The most acclaimed work is Man with a Movie Camera (1929).^{[citation needed]}