Mark Donskoy


Mark Semyonovich Donskoy was a Soviet film director and screenwriter.
Mark Donskoy was born in Odessa in a Jewish family. During the Civil War, he served in the Red Army, and was captured by the whites for ten months. Demobilized, he studied psychology and psychiatry at the Crimean medical school. In 1925 he graduated from the legal department of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Crimean University named after M.V. Frunze in Simferopol. At the same time he worked in investigative bodies, in the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR, and in the bar association. He released a collection of short stories about his life called “Prisoners”.
Donskoy began his career in film in 1926. He worked in the script department, then as an assistant director in Moscow, later as an editing assistant in Leningrad. In 1935 he became the first Soviet dubbing director, he dubbed the American film “The Invisible Man”. In 1938-1941, and in 1945-1955 he was the director of the Soyuzdetfilm film studio. In 1942-1945 and in 1955-1957 - director of the Kiev film studio. Since 1957, director and art director of the Maxim Gorky film studio.
His wife was the screenwriter Irina Borisovna Donskaya.

Selected filmography