ABSTRACT
Recently films depicting the events of our epoch or of the distant past in Georgia, among the Crimean Tartars, in Armenia etc., have been showing on our screens. These are the result of last year's summer expeditions. The reflection in cinema of the revolutionary struggle of our nationalities must be acknowledged as a proper task. Cinema can and must play an enormous role in educating the nationalities of the USSR. It is very easy to translate intertitles into the languages of these nationalities, much easier, of course, than it is to print books in these languages. But events taking place on the screen are intelligible without words and do not require translation. However, it is with regret that we must admit that very many of these attempts have met with failure. We should note, for example, Abrek Zaur and The Song on the Rock. Our film workers - scriptwriters and directors - have not devoted enough attention to studying the way of life, the history and customs of the nationalities about whom they have begun to make films and the result has been an extremely sad affair. On the
spot these films provoke mocking smiles because the nationalities do not recognise themselves on the screen and, seeing the caricature of their way of life, become indignant. But for us these pictures are less interesting because their plots, following the habit of our pseudo-Revolutionary scripts, are concocted hastily and tritely: policemen oppress, princes feast, brave mountain people rebel and deceive the police. The result: wasted resources, wasted funds, failed, or halffailed, films. We must take a particularly resolute hard line on ideological consistency and historical literacy for this kind of film.
