David Abelevich Kaufman (2 January 1896 – 12 February 1954) — also known as
Denis Kaufman or his
pseudonym Dziga Vertov or
Vertof (, "spinning top") — was a
Soviet pioneer
documentary film and
newsreel director, as well as a cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the
cinéma vérité style of documentary movie-making and the
Dziga Vertov Group, a radical film-making cooperative which was active in the 1960s.