Dziga Vertov

David Abelevich Kaufman (Russian: Дави́д А́белевич Ка́уфман) (2 January 1896 – 12 February 1954) — better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov, or Vertof (Russian: Дзи́га Ве́ртов, "spinning top") — was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the cinéma vérité style of documentary moviemaking and the Dziga Vertov Group, a radical filmmaking cooperative which was active in the 1960s.

In the 2012 Sight and Sound poll, the critics voted Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929) the 8th best film ever made.

Vertov's brothers Boris Kaufman and Mikhail Kaufman were also noted filmmakers, as was his wife, Elizaveta Svilova.