ATINATI: Mikheil Kalatozov (Kalatozishvili)

Mikheil Kalatozov (Kalatozishvili) was a Georgian filmmaker who remains the only filmmaker in Soviet and Post-soviet cinema to have won the Palme D’or -the main prize at the Cannes film festival. He received the award for the war drama The Cranes Are Flying in 1958.
Born in 1903 in Tbilisi, Georgia, Mikheil Kalatozsihvili (later Kalatozov) studied economics before deciding to seek work in cinema. He began his film career at the height of the silent film era, trying out several occupations in the industry: He started as a chauffeur at the Georgian Film Studio, then glued the film rolls together, after which he became an editor, starred in several movies as an actor, worked as a cameraman, a second director, and eventually became an independent filmmaker. His directorial debut was Salt for Svanetia (Jim Svante), filmed in 1930, which became a milestone in both his career and in the history of Georgian and Soviet cinema.
“If we had known that this picture existed back in 1964, maybe cinema would have been different now”- this is how Martin Scorsese reacted to Mikhail Kalatozov’s (Kalatozishvili) I Am Cuba, after discovering it in the mid-1990s. The Hollywood master claimed the film to be a genuine hidden treasure, referring to Kalatozov’s storytelling technique and unique cinematic language, adding that “it puts to shame anything we’re doing today”.