Dimitri Devyatkin
Independent Producer, Writer, United States
YouTube http://www.youtube.com/dimitrid
Vimeo https://vimeo.com/devyatkin
Film and TV Producer: Feature Films and Documentaries
Dimitri
is a video pioneer, media artist, public speaker
and story-teller. His programs were
broadcast on ABC, PBS, British Channel Four TV, German WDR, French FR3, TF1 and
Russian 1st Channel.
Programs include: (Click on titles)
“Media
Shuttle: New York-Moscow” with
Nam June Paik, WNET Channel 13 New York broadcast,
“Video From
Russia: The People Speak”
Emmy nominated in Los Angeles, aired 4 times on KABC Los Angeles, on WABC New
York, Channel Four UK, France FR3, WDR Germany. (see reviews below)
“Verkola: A Village in Northern
Russia”
on PBS in the US, Channel Four UK, French TV 2
“El Salvador: Names of War”
Portrait of the guerrillas during El Salvador’s civil war
“It’s
Raining in Brighton Beach” classic
comedy directed by Leonid Gaidai. Dimitri was Line Producer. Named one of 100 best Russian films,
1992-2013.
See Interview (translation) in AFISHA
magazine. Dec. 2013 about making this film.
Original Russian - http://mag.afisha.ru/stories/100-glavnyh-russkih-filmov/
Scriptwriter/Producer - feature films, historical drama, documentary
· Taste My Revenge, Money from Heaven and Funny Stories
Broadcast Operations & Engineering
ABC Television
Network, New York,
HD, Digital Video, live programs, Sports, Drama,
News, union member NABET CWA, May 2006 –
January 2010
Executive Producer, Manager:
Streamedia Communications, Inc. New York Vice President, Europe, based in Amsterdam and New
York, 1999 –2000
Metromedia
International, US, -created
cable TV channels, Eurosport Russia,
Nickelodeon, Director,
Special Projects, Cable TV, based in Moscow, created Russian language channels,
General Director “Digital Dubbing Services,” managed staff of 20, held
power of attorney, 1994 –1999
TV news, journalist – producer,
associate producer:
Worldwide Television News, London, Producer in Russia, collapse of USSR, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, 1986 – 1988
CBS
News With Dan Rather, CBS Evening News, Sunday Morning, Associate
Producer, Moscow bureau, correspondent Barry Peterson, Gorbachev-Reagan
summit meetings, Russian artists “Mitki,” 1985 – 1986
Line Producer, Feature Films: 6 films for Mosfilm, classic comedy director Leonid Gaidai, “It’s Raining in Brighton Beach” 1992, and director Sergei Solovyev “The House Under the Starry Sky” and “Prigovor” a crime drama.
Video artist- collaborated with Nam June Paik on a WNET broadcast program, documented famous “Fluxus”artists’ performances and played a central role with Woody and Steina Vasulka, in creating the New York video theatre “The Kitchen.” Organized the trailblazing First International Computer Arts Festival at The Kitchen and won a New York State CAPS grant for video art. Worked with Charlotte Moorman to organize the New York Avant Garde Festival on the riverboat “Alexander Hamilton” and was personally acquainted with John Lennon. Dimitri is listed in Jonas Mekas' "Birth of a Nation" DVD (1997) as one of the "essential nation of cinema" of American film making from 1955-1996.
Education
• City University of New York, Baccalaureate Degree, Major in Cinema and Russian Language
• Moscow Cinema Institute, VGIK, Documentary Film Directing, under director Roman Lazeravich Karmen
• Moscow State University, intensive Russian Language, history, geography
• St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland, classical philosophy, literature, Ancient Greek, French
• Bronx High School of Science, New York, micro-biology, calculus, journalism, French
Other training
• Institut Für Sprachvermittlung, Bonn, Germany, Intensive German language course
• Screenwriters Boot Camp, New York, Screenplay writing course
• Avid Media Composer, non-linear digital editing, City University of New York
• Business Accounting for Executives, Arthur Andersen offices, Moscow
Languages
• English mother language, public speaker, lecturer, teacher, writer, editor
•
Russian fluent, formal and
colloquial spoken, reading.
• French intermediate, functional in work, conversation
• German intermediate, B2 certificate
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Museum of Modern Art, Paris
International Young Film Forum, Berlin and the Berlin Film Festival (twice)
Lenbach Haus Museum, Munich
Moscow Film Festival, Dom Kino (twice)
Anna Akhmatova Museum, St. Petersburg
Festival d’Avignon, France
American Cultural Centers, Paris & London
Amerika Haus, Nürnberg, Frankfurt
College of Architects, Barcelona (twice)
Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis
The Kitchen, New York, co-director 2 years
Everson Museum, Syracuse
Syracuse University Visiting Artist (twice)
New York University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
State University of New York, Purchase
Ramapo College, New Jersey
Bonn International School, Germany
Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Germany, 2014
Interests
History, political science, current affairs, economy, media, sciences, information technology, art, music, cinema.
Violin – played electric violin, 2 months with jazz
legend, Rahsaan Roland Kirk at Both/And Café, San Francisco; at age 17, classical violin, age 12-17, played in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, New
York City High School Orchestra.
Press reviews:
“Tapes
of Dimitri Devyatkin. Finally an interesting and intelligent sensibility in
video. I really liked Devyatkin’s tapes…. There is an intelligence and
sensitivity reflected in everything he does. The first video artist whose work
I want to see again.”
Jones
Mekas, Village Voice “Movie
Journal” 1972
“Devyatkin’s work… is situated on the frontiers
of video art and video documentary. As the separation between these directions
deepens, Devyatkin’s work integrates the two domains in a totally personal
manner.”
Genviève Van Cauwenberge, Professor, critic, Liege,
Belgium – 1978
“Devyatkin’s access to Soviet life was through friends who would fetch him from his room and push him in a taxi, telling him there was something he just had to tape. The result is an unusual and revealing look at how ordinary Soviet citizens live.” David Dupot, The Sunday Rutland Herald – 1980
“Devyatkin’s documentary style moves lyrically rather than narratively. No political points are made… Their perspectives are real and human. They are successful and exceptional.”… "Regardless of your interest or lack thereof in video art, The Sordid Affair is a loaded color warhead of a tape taken straight from former President Richard Nixon's infamous first Watergate speech. … Devyatkin explains, "My TV did something strange to Nixon's image. When he lied, the TV wobbled his face and the denser his lies became, the more abstract became the image of his face until it was hardly a face anymore.".... The Sordid Affair is an historical grotesque tragi-comedy that sticks voodoo pins into the American memory. Remember to laugh when you hear line after line of incredibly sick rhetoric." … David Skarjune, The Minnesota Daily, Minneapolis - November 21, 1980
“KABC’s special tonight is the one to watch.
It’s as intriguing as its title suggests, “Video From Russia: The People Speak”
… a rare opportunity to hear spontaneous comments from people who are lumped
together in political rhetoric as our enemy. It is fascinating, but more than
that it is humanizing. There are recognizable scenes of people shopping in the
open market, of citizens paying their respects at the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier in Volgograd, of people dancing to American rock music at a disco, of a
young woman with safety pins in her ears who says she is part of the punk
movement.”
Lee Margulies, The Los Angeles Times – July
26, 1984
“By keeping this special simple and small, producer-director Dimitri Devyatkin has come up with a winner. All he tried to do was give an honest, human look at an unscientific sampling of Russians, and that’s just what he’s done. … Americans see themselves and their countrymen in these Russians. …The show gives us clear portraits of people recognizable from everyone’s lives – the cigarette-puffing antiestablishment juvenile; the proud, ornery older folks, lecturing about the past and warning about the future; the unsophisticated laborer, whose common-sense appraisal of world affairs shows more insight than an embassyful of diplomats… a clear look at another nation.” Thomas B. Bierbaum, “VARIETY” – July 30, 1984
“Wherever the camera crew goes -
a farmers' market, an exhibition of arms, a disco, an amusement park, a
children's playground, a church service - the people interviewed call for peace
and friendship, usually in that order. Most express admiration for America and
displeasure with the Reagan Administration, which, they say, is promoting war between
the two countries. Several recall the hardships of World War II and speak of
the horrors of nuclear war.” Walter
Goodman, The New York Times -- VIDEO FROM
RUSSIA
June
12, 1985 -- full article > http://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/12/arts/video-from-russia.htm