Gerbert Rappaport

Gerbert Moritsevich Rappaport was born on July 7, 1908, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria). His father, Morice Rappaport, was a Doctor psychoanalyst.

In 1927-28, young Rappaport studied law at University of Vienna.

In 1928 he moved to Berlin and started working at Nero-Film Studio. There he met his Austrian compatriot, director Georg Pabst.

During the 1930s he worked as assistant director with Georg Wilhelm Pabst in about ten productions, including several works with the Paramount Studios in Hollywood.

There, in 1935, Rappaport was handpicked by Boris Shumyatskiy, the leader of the Soviet State Committee for Cinema. Boris Shumyatskiy invited Rappaport to work as director at the Lenfilm Studios in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). Rappoport accepted the invitation, because the Soviets supported his artistic ideas for making anti-Nazi films.

In 1938 Rappaport made his directorial debut with Professor Mamlock (1938), an anti-Nazi film about a brilliant Jewish doctor who saves the life of a Nazi leader, and get killed as a reward.

The film based on the eponymous play by Friedrich Wolf was a success in the Soviet Union, but it was temporarily banned in 1939, after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact. During the Second World War, the film was popular again, and Rappaport continued making successful films securing himself a steady career and a high reputation in the Soviet Cinema. Gerbert Rappaport was designated Honorable Artist of Russia.

He was nominated for Grand Prize of the Cannes Film Festival for Stars of the Russian Ballet (1954).

His last film was a criminal drama Menya eto ne kasaetsya (1976).