Awards :
Prix Staline de degré II pour le film La vallée dorée, 1941
Prix Staline de degré II pour le film Elisso, 1941
Biography
Nikolaï Chenguelaïa was born on August 8, 1903 in Oboudji, Georgia. In his youth, Nikolai Chenguelaya wrote poetry and in the 1920s took lessons from Lev Kuleshov.
He made his film debut in 1924 and in 1927 he made his first film Giulli. In 1935 he was awarded the title of Honored Master of Arts of the RSFSR. In 1928 he made Elisso (based on the short story by A. Kazbegi), the greatest work of Soviet silent cinema, in which epic poetry and historical authenticity organically merge. In 1933 his groundbreaking work of Soviet cinema Twenty-Six Commissars was dedicated to the Baku commune. In 1937 he made The Golden Valley. He also wrote or co-wrote many screenplays. He is the father of Eldar and Georgi Chenguelaya. In 1941 he was awarded the USSR National Prize and the Red Banner of Labour Prize. He died in a road accident near Tbilisi in 1943.
