Ilja Kopalin

Ilya Petrovich Kopalin (Russian: Илья́ Петро́вич Копа́лин ; 1900–1976) was a Soviet film director remembered for his documentaries. His most famous footage is that of Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference and that of Yuri Gagarin's space flight.

He was born the son of a peasant on 2 August 1900 in the village of Pavlovskaya, Zvenigorod on the outskirts of Moscow. In his youth he worked in a factory in Moscow. After October 1917 he trained first as a land surveyor then as a pilot. A chance meeting with Dziga Vertov led him instantly into an interest in the cinema. Aged 24 he went to work for Vertov as a camera-man, working on films such as Kinoglaz, but later would work independently. His early films look at country life and agriculture in the newly created USSR.

His work gained him six Stalin Prizes and the Order of Lenin. He died in Moscow on 12 June 1976.