On July 29, an envelope with a commemorative stamp dedicated to the 125th Birth Anniversary of Mikhail Romm, a film director, a People’s Artist of the USSR, was put into postal circulation

Mikhail Romm (1901–1971) was a Soviet theater and film director, a scriptwriter, an educator, and an essay writer. He was an Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR and a People’s Artist of the USSR, a winner of five Stalin Prizes (1941, 1946, 1948, 1949, 1951) and the Vasilyev Brothers State Prize of the RSFSR (1966).

M. Romm was born in Irkutsk on January 8 (21) of 1901. In 1907, his family moved to Moscow. In 1917, he finished gymnasium. In 1925, he graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Higher State Art and Technical Institute. From 1928 to 1930, he worked as a non-regular member of the staff of the film commission at the Institute for the Methods of Extra-Scholastic Work. Once he gained access to films, he began memorizing them and analyzing them in detail. This work improved greatly his skills in the field of editing, screenwriting, and mise-en-scène. In 1930, he began writing screenplays for the Sovkino film studio in Moscow. Some of them were produced: Revenge, Close to Us, and The Conveyor Belt of Death. In 1933, M. Romm received his first independent project: the silent film The Fat Girl, based on the novella by Guy de Maupassant. In this adaptation, shot in just two small sets and distinguished by its precise casting, the novice director demonstrated his skill in translating the literary source material into the language of cinema. In 1937, he was offered an opportunity to direct the first feature sound film about Lenin - The Uprising. The film was released under the title Lenin in October and was a great success.

From October of 1940, he was an artistic director and a deputy head of the Main Directorate for Feature Film Production. In May of 1941, he was appointed head of the feature film production department. From 1942 to 1947, he was the Director at the Film Actor’s Theater Studio. He had been a drama instructor since 1938, and from 1948, he headed the acting and directing workshop at VGIK (the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography). He also taught film directing at the High Courses for Scriptwriters and Film Directors. In cooperation with Yuli Raizman, he headed the Third Creative Association at the Mosfilm film studio. In 1965, he directed the Ordinary Fascism documental film. He was the author of books and articles on the cinematic art.

The commemorative stamp features a portrait of Mikhail Romm and a cine-film; the main illustration shows the film director at work with a script and a movie camera.

In addition to the issue of the envelope with a commemorative stamp, JSC Marka produced special cancels for Moscow and Irkutsk.


Design Artists: D. Musikhina-Belova and Kh. Betredinova.
Quantity: 500 thousand envelopes.

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