Mark Donskoy

Mark Semyonovich Donskoy (Russian: Марк Семёнович Донско́й; 6 March [O.S. 21 February] 1901 –21 March 1981) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter.

Mark Donskoy was born in Odessa in a Jewish family. During the Civil War, he served in the Red Army (1921-1923), and was captured by the whites for ten months. Demobilized, he studied psychology and psychiatry at the Crimean medical school. In 1925 he graduated from the legal department of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Crimean University named after M.V. Frunze in Simferopol. At the same time he worked in investigative bodies, in the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR, and in the bar association. He released a collection of short stories about his life called “Prisoners” (1925).

Donskoy began his career in film in 1926. He worked in the script department, then as an assistant director in Moscow, later as an editing assistant in Leningrad. In 1935 he became the first Soviet dubbing director, he dubbed the American film “The Invisible Man”. In 1938-1941, and in 1945-1955 he was the director of the Soyuzdetfilm film studio (Moscow). In 1942-1945 and in 1955-1957 - director of the Kiev film studio. Since 1957, director and art director of the Maxim Gorky film studio (formerly Soyuzdetfilm).

His wife was the screenwriter Irina Borisovna Donskaya (1918-1983).

• The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (1938)
• Gorky 2: My Apprenticeship (1939)
• Gorky 3: My Universities (1940)
• How the Steel Was Tempered (1942)
• Rainbow (1944)
• The Unvanquished (1945)
• Alitet Leaves for the Hills (1949)
• Mother (1955)
• At Great Cost/The Horse That Cried (1957)
• Foma Gordeyev (1959)
• A Mother's Heart (1965)

• Stalin Prizes:
  • 2nd class (1941) – for The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (1938) and People (1939)
  • 1st class (1946) – for Rainbow (1943)
  • 1st class (1948) – for Village Teacher (1947)
• USSR State Prize (1968) – for Heart Mother (1966)
• People's Artist of USSR (1966)
• Hero of Socialist Labour (1971)
• Two Orders of Lenin
• Order of the October Revolution (18 March 1981)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labour
• Highest Award of the American Film Critics Association 1944 – for Rainbow
• Award of Daily News – for best foreign film shown in the U.S. in 1944 (Rainbow)
• Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival 1946 – for The Unvanquished
• Special prize of the Italian journalists Venice IFF 1948 – for My Universities
• Award for Best Director Film Festival in Paris 1949 – for The Country Teacher
• First Prize in Stockholm International Film Festival 1949 – for My Universities
• Prize R. Unningtona Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1955 – for The Childhood of Maxim Gorky, The People and My Universities
• Prize for best director at the Locarno International Film Festival 1960 – for Foma Gordeev
• Special Diploma in Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 1970 – for Rainbow