Religious Jews in Minsk; Farm life and factories in Russia

In urban Russia, probably Minsk, throngs of people in the street crowd around the camera. Groups of women and men each pose for the camera. 01:07:26 Inside, a large group of women sit in a crowded room reading from prayerbooks, probably in observance of Yom Kippur, according to Gessner. Outside in the street, CUs of religious Jewish men with prayer shawls. 01:08:37 Farm workers and their children pose for the camera in a rural environment in Russia. Pan, facade of large buildings. Men on horseback go through a field, then hitch horses to plows. CUs of the farm workers, including one young man who laughs at the camera. 01:11:15 Filmmaker Robert Gessner interacts with the farmers. 01:11:25 INT, rows of women sit in a large room and work on sewing machines. Women sit and collect produce (potatoes?) from a large container into baskets. Pan of town square (?), market activity (?), horses with cart stacked with hay. 01:12:26 A group of children exit a building, walk in pairs past the camera, then sit for the filmmaker in front of a stack of hay. 01:12:55 Very dark, indiscernible scenes of men and women working inside a factory. A man operates a piece of factory equipment. Children gather around the camera in the road in a village. An elderly woman sits on the side of the road. Robert Gessner was born on October 21, 1907 in Escanaba, MI. He obtained a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1929 and a M.A. from Columbia University in 1930. He started teaching at New York University in 1930. He married Doris Lindeman on May 27, 1938 and had two children, Peter and Stephen. Mr. Gessner was a screen playwright and the author of several books, including "Massacre" (1931); "Broken Arrow" (1933); "Some of My Best Friends are Jews" (1936); "Treason" (1944); "Youth is the Time" (1945). He was a pioneer educator in motion pictures as an art form. Gessner founded the Motion Picture Department (now Cinema Studies) at NYU in 1941, the first four-year film curriculum leading to a B.A. degree in motion picture studies in the United States. He finished his book "The Moving Image, A Guide to Cinematic Literacy" before he died in June 1968.