Olga Preobrazhenskaya

Olga Ivanovna Preobrazhenskaya (24.07.1881, Moscow – 30.10.1971, ibid.) was a Russian and Soviet stage and film actress, film director, screenwriter and pedagogue; she was one of the first female film directors in the world, and the first female film director in Russia. Honoured Artist of the RSFSR (1935).

Between 1901 and 1906, Preobrazhenskaya attended the Moscow Art Theatre Studio, after which she worked in provincial theatres. In 1913, she made her film debut in The Keys to Happiness, as Mania Yeltsova. One of her first works as a director was The Peasant Girl (1916); Preobrazhenskaya worked on this film alongside her husband, the director Vladimir Rostislavovich Gardin. After its release, the film received high praise; however, as it was a female director’s debut film, it was met with scepticism, and on posters and in reviews her name was often written with a masculine ending or attributed to other directors. Following the October Revolution (1917), she taught at the First State Film School (now VGIK) for several years, and was one of the founders of its acting school.

After graduating from the Moscow Art Theatre School in 1923, she worked as a director at the Goskino film studio (now Mosfilm), and served as assistant director on the films The Landowner and The Locksmith & the Chancellor (1923). From 1925 onwards, she worked exclusively as a director. From 1927 onwards, she collaborated with film director Ivan Pravov, with whom she made several films. Her most significant directorial work during the silent film era is the film ‘Women of Ryazan’.

In 1928, she was elected as member of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Union of Cinematographers and a member of the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR.