Films Albatros

Films Albatros was a French film production company established in 1922. It was formed by a group of White Russian exiles who had been forced to flee following the 1917 Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War. Initially the firm's personnel consisted mainly of Russian exiles, but over time French actors and directors were employed by the company. Its operations continued until the late 1930s.

Faced with increasingly difficult working conditions in Russia after the revolution of 1917, the film producer Joseph Ermolieff decided to move his operations to Paris where he had connections with the Pathé company. Arriving in 1920 with a group of close associates, Ermolieff took over a studio in Montreuil-sous-Bois in the eastern suburbs of Paris and began making films through his company Ermolieff-Cinéma. His co-founder of the company was Alexandre Kamenka, another Russian exile, and when in 1922 Ermolieff moved to Germany, Kamenka, together with his colleagues Noë Bloch and Maurice Hache, took over the company and re-established it as the Société des Films Albatros. He also set up a distribution company called Les Films Armor in order to control the distribution of his own films. Various explanations have been given for the choice of the name Albatros: the name of a boat which brought some of the émigrés from Russia; a symbol of White Russia; an incident with an albatros on the journey. As well as adopting the image of the albatros as its symbol, the company took the motto "Debout dans la tempête" ("upright in the storm").

Among the group of Russian artists who stayed to work with Albatros were the directors Victor Tourjansky and Alexandre Volkoff, the art director Alexandre Lochakoff, the costume designer Boris Bilinsky, and the actors Ivan Mosjoukine, Nathalie Lissenko, Nicolas Koline, and Nicolas Rimsky. Although this Russian company initially favoured Russian themes, Kamenka quickly realised the need for greater integration with French film production, and they turned increasingly to French subjects. In 1924 a number of Kamenka's Russian associates left Albatros, and Kamenka offered opportunities to several innovative French film-makers including Jean Epstein, Jacques Feyder, Marcel L'Herbier and René Clair.

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