“Evrei Na Zemle” [“Jews on the Land.”]

(SOVIET UNION)

1927

Text in Russian.

OZET documentary directed by the great Soviet film-maker Avrom Room (1894-1976). Focuses on the resettling of Jews from the squalid conditions of the shtetls to a self-governing, agricultural way of life. The film was made with the participation of such notable avant-garde figures as Viktor Shklovsky, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Lilia Brik, who were all committed to the project of Jewish emancipation. OZET, the Society for Settling Working Jews on the Land, was the official government organization responsible for the enlisting of Jews to agricultural settlements. They originally put their efforts into bringing Jews to the Black Sea area, but by 1928 shifted their attention to focus almost solely on the Birobidzhan project located in the Russian Far East.