Dziga Vertov

David Abelevich Kaufman also known as Denis Kaufman or his pseudonym Dziga Vertov or Vertof was a Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsreel director, as well as a cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the cinma vrit style of documentary moviemaking and the Dziga Vertov Group, a radical filmmaking cooperative which was active in the 1960s.

Vertov was born David Abelevich Kaufman into a family of Jewish lineage in Biaystok, Poland, then a part of the Russian Empire. His father was a librarian. He Russified his Jewish name David and patronymic Abelevich to Denis Arkadievich at some point after 1918. Vertov studied music at Biaystok Conservatory until his family fled from the invading German Army to Moscow in 1915. The Kaufmans soon settled in Petrograd, where Vertov began writing poetry, science fiction and satire. In 19161917 Vertov was studying medicine at the Psychoneurological Institute in Saint Petersburg and experimenting with sound collages in his free time. He eventually adopted the name Dziga Vertov, which translates loosely from Ukrainian as spinning top.

Source: Wikipedia