Iosif Kheifits
Soviet and Russian film director (1905–1995)

Iosif Yefimovich Kheifits (17 December [O.S. 4 December] 1905 – 24 April 1995) was a Soviet film director, winner of two Stalin Prizes (1941, 1946), People's Artist of USSR (1964), Hero of Socialist Labor (1975). Member of the Communist Party of Soviet Union since 1945.
Life and career
Kheifets was born 17 December 1905 in Minsk. In 1927 he graduated from the Leningrad Technical-Screen Art (present-day Saint Petersburg State Institute of Film and Television). In 1928, he graduated from the cinema faculty of Institute of History of Art. In 1928, Iosif Kheifets came to work at the film studio Sovkino (present-day Lenfilm Studio). In film, he first made his debut as a screenwriter, with Aleksandr Ivanov and Aleksandr Zarkhi he created the scripts for films The Moon Is to the Left and Transport of Fire.
Then, Iosif Kheifits became a director, while from 1928 to 1950 he worked with Aleksandr Zarkhi, headed the 1st Komsomol stage brigade of Sovkino, releasing films on the Soviet youth: Wind in the Face (1930), Noon (1931), and the comedy Hectic Days (1935). Baltic Deputy (1937) featured how Russian scientist Professor Polezhayev (based on the life of Kliment Timiryazev, starring Nikolay Konstantinovich Cherkasov) joined the October Revolution. A significant performance was in Member of the Government (1939), a film centered on the image of a Russian peasant woman (starring Vera Maretskaya), who took the difficult path from a farmhand to a deputy of the Supreme Soviet.
The public source identifies “Iosif Kheifits” as soviet and Russian film director (1905–1995). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Iosif, Kheifits and Soviet.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q741710. VIAF identifies the subject as 113679226. The Library of Congress control number is n82028008. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1905, 1995, 1941 and 1946.
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This entry incorporates text from “Iosif Kheifits” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.