An outstanding Russian filmmaker, one of the founders of Russian sound cinema, as well as a great actor, director and teacher, Leonid Leonidovich Obolensky was born on January 21, 1902 in Arzamas. He made his acting debut in 1920 in the film On the Red Front. In 1918-1920 he served in the political department of the Red Army headquarters. In 1920-1921 he studied at the First State Film School, in the workshop of L. Kuleshov. Since 1920 he played in Moscow theaters - in Children's, Satire, Red Army.
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An outstanding Russian filmmaker, one of the founders of Russian sound cinema, as well as a great actor, director and teacher, Leonid Leonidovich Obolensky was born on January 21, 1902 in Arzamas. He made his acting debut in 1920 in the film On the Red Front. In 1918-1920 he served in the political department of the Red Army headquarters. In 1920-1921 he studied at the First State Film School, in the workshop of L. Kuleshov. Since 1920 he played in Moscow theaters - in Children's, Satire, Red Army. In 1922-41 he taught at VGIK, in the workshops of L. Kuleshov and S. Eisenstein, associate professor of the department of directing on the technique and theory of sound design (1940). In 1925-27 he taught acting and stage movement at the Tchaikovsky Film Acting Studio. Since 1925, Leonid Obolensky, director of the film studio Mezhrabpomfilm, was an assistant to L. Kuleshov and S. Eisenstein, he himself staged several films, including the then very popular film Bricks (1925). Fascinated by sound cinema, seriously engaged in the issues of film sound and in 1929-1930 in Berlin studied sound recording equipment, and since 1930 worked as a sound engineer at the film studio "Mejrabpomfilm", took part in the creation of the paintings "Redge", "The Great Comforter", "Marionettes". Since 1936, he became artistic director, director and sound designer of the opera studio of the House of Folk Art in Ashgabat, taught stage movement in the theater, was a sound designer at the Ashgabat film studio. In 1939-40 he worked as an artist-decorator at the Soyuzdetfilm film studio. In June 1941, Leonid Obolensky went to the militia, was captured. After the war he was illegally repressed. Until 1952 he worked in the departmental theater of the NKVD in Pechora, then lived in a settlement in Minusinsk, where until 1956 he worked as a director in the local drama theater. Then he moved to Sverdlovsk, where, having again passed all the stages of the directorial profession, he worked as a director and sound operator at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio. In the early 1960s, Leonid Obolensky became interested in television, and in 1962 he became a director of the Chelyabinsk television studio, and in 1970 he moved to the popular science film studio in Sverdlovsk, creating documentary films - People of Inquiring Thought and Prisoner of Iron Crystal. In 1972, he moved to Miass, where he became a director-methodist of the club of film lovers of the Palace of Culture "Prometheus". Although Leonid Obolensky began acting in films back in the 1920s, playing, in particular, in such films as “The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in Bolshevik Country” (1924) and “Feast of St. Jorgen” (1930), he returned to acting after a long break only in the 1970s. Among the films in which the actor starred: “The Silence of Dr. Ivens” (1974), “Pure English Murder” (1976), “Red and Black” (1976), “Nut Bread” (1978), “Maria Medici’s Casket” (1980), “Teenage” (1983), “A million in the marriage basket” (1986). For his work in the film At the End of the Night (1979), Leonid Obolensky was awarded the Golden Nymph Award at the XX International Film Festival in Monte Carlo in 1980 for the best performance of a male role. About the life and work of Leonid Obolensky documentaries "Your departing object. Leonid Obolensky" (1991), "The Mystery of Marriage" (1993) were filmed.