Mark Donskoy

Major Soviet filmmaker who studied under Eisenstein and is best known for his "Gorky" trilogy ("The Childhood of Maxim Gorky" 1938, "My Apprenticeship/Out in the World/Among People" 1939, "My Universities/University of Life" 1940), based on the early life of his celebrated writer friend. After a brief period of government harassment Donskoy returned to filmmaking with a remake of Vsevolod Pudovkin's 1926 silent classic "Mother" (1956) which, like most of his films through the following decade, was somewhat lackluster. He returned to form with two films on Soviet leader V. I. Lenin, "Heart of a Mother" and "A Mother's Devotion" (both 1967), which were acclaimed for their brilliant evocation of pre-Soviet Russia.