Film phare – film fantôme : le procès du Parti industriel en images et en sons (1930-2020)

Iakov Posel´skii’s almost two-hour-long documentary 13 days was one of the first Soviet sound films. It was supposed to be the cornerstone of a large mobilization campaign launched on the occasion of the Industrial party trial (1930). However, despite such ambitions, the film audience was less than minimal, and the material integrity of the reels has not been preserved up to this day. Rather than becoming an iconic film, 13 days became more of a phantom film, and this from its first screenings. This seeming paradox is the focus of the article. The documentary is approached from the double perspective of the history of Soviet documentary film and the literature on popular mobilization practices in the USSR. As the Industrial party trial was viewed by the authorities as an important tool of their own legitimation, multiple actors were incited to take part in the mobilization campaign. On their part, filmmakers had some additional reasons to zealously contribute to the campaign. Not only did the trial present an opportunity to highlight the role of film in political propaganda – and thus to justify the demand for increased funding to ensure the transition to sound cinema – but also to prove filmmakers’ loyalty to the regime as the trial had repercussions in this professional group as well. The article examines different facets of the film, the context of its shooting, the actors involved, as well as its distribution and reception. It also presents the still surviving footage and puts forward some hypotheses concerning the original form of the film. Together with the reconstruction of technical facilities, lighting, filming and audio recording, these elements allow us to analyse the interactions between sound and images, what they tell us about the trial and about the political meaning of the original shooting. On this basis, it becomes possible to measure the distortion effects produced by later editing as visual and sound archives were used to underpin a different discourse.