For You at the Front!

Directed by Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova

Starring Nurpeis Baiganin

From the start, Vertov made himself known as an irreconcilable enemy of “acted films,” which he regarded as a violation of truth. At the peak of World War II, however, such lofty artistic principles proved impractical. Vertov’s poetic and patriotic For You, Front! is a fiction film with a script and two actors. In a letter to her fiancé, a soldier on the front, Saule asks if there is anything he needs from “our beloved Kazakhstan.” Yes there is, he replies: lead, which can be used to make bullets to kill the enemies of “our beloved country.”