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.[ 1]

He was born the son of a peasant[ 2] on 2 August 1900 in the village of Pavlovskaya, Zvenigorod on the outskirts of Moscow.[ 3] 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,[ 4] but later would work independently. His early films look at country life and agriculture in the newly created USSR.[ 2]

His work gained him six Stalin Prizes and the Order of Lenin. He died in Moscow on 12 June 1976.[ 5]