Margarita Barskaya

Margarita Aleksandrovna Barskaya (Маргари́та Алекса́ндровна Ба́рская; 19 June 1903 – 23 July 1939) was a Soviet actress, filmmaker, and screenwriter. She wrote the screenplays for and directed three films. She was married to director Pyotr Chardynin.

Early life Margarita Aleksandrovna Barskaya was born on 19 June 1903 in Baku. After her parents separated when she was six, Margarita and her two sisters were raised by their mother, who owned a hat store and provided lodging for actors. Barskaya graduated from the First Azerbaijan State Drama Studio when she was 19 and then joined the touring company Red Torch (Krasnyi fakel), where she was the lead actress of travesties under Vladimir Tatischev. While touring in Odessa, Barskaya was asked to become a film actress and met director Pyotr Chardynin. They married soon after.

Film career Barskaya took roles in Chardynin's films. She appeared in the 1922 film Modzgvari and Aleksandr Dovzhenko's first film, Love's Berries (1926). She was more drawn to the job of assistant director than that of a film actor, as "the cinema deprives the actor of his main weapon: the word." In 1926, Chardynin made a children's version of Taras Shevchenko at her urging. Towards the late 1920s Barskaya left her husband. She moved to Moscow in 1929 and turned her focus to children's film. Barskaya initiated the foundation of a film council at Narkompros and organized a children's section for the Association of Revolutionary Film-Workers.

In 1930, Barskaya directed her first film, Who's More Important, What's More Necessary. She made the educational film at Vostokkino in four months. The film received positive reviews and public interest increased when it was discovered that an animated sequence from the film was by Aleksandr Ivanov and that Valentin Pavlov was one of the three cameramen.

Barskaya wrote the script for and directed the successful 1933 children's fiction film Torn Boots (Rvanye Bashmaki). Made by the German-Russian film company Mezhrabpomfilm, it is set in early Nazi Germany with its subject being the lives of German workers' children. It premiered alongside the Spanish film Call to Arms on 1 March in the Besant Hall, London. It was the first realistic Soviet film geared towards children.

She was buried at the Donskoye Cemetery.

Filmography As actor Modzgvari (1922) Simple Heart (Простые сердца; 1924) (Бабий Лог; 1925) (Генерал с того света; 1925) Salt (Соль; 1925) Love's Berries (Ягодка любви; 1926) Taras Shaken (Тарас Трясило; 1927)

As director and screenwriter Who's More Important, What's More Necessary (Кто важнее — что нужнее; 1930) Torn Boots (Рваные башмаки; 1933) Father and Son (Отец и сын; 1937)