Petersburg's documentary film studio celebrates 70th anniversary

The St. Petersburg documentary film studio celebrates its 70th anniversary.

On Tuesday the Cinema House will host a ceremony to celebrate the memorable date.

The film studio was founded in Leningrad (St. Petersburg's name in the Soviet times) in 1932. It was the first news-reel studio in Russia. During World War II it was the only front film studio. Its cameramen worked at the fronts and shot the scenes of the 900-day Leningrad's blockade.

All in all, 950 documentaries (more than 900 hours of news-reels and 500 hours of films) were shot at the studio over 40 years - from 1957 till 1997.

Nowadays, the studio continues shooting current news-reels, producing up to ten full-length films and shorts and about 150 subjects of Russia's Cinema Chronicle annually.

Archives were created at the studio in 1957 to keep the complete collection of chronicle subjects and film journals. Now the archives continue more than 50,000 units, including unique materials.