Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov was a Russian and Soviet filmmaker and film theorist, one of the founders of the world's first film school, the Moscow Film School. He was given the title People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1969. He was intimately involved in development of the style of film making known as Soviet montage, especially its psychological underpinning, including the use of editing and the cut to influence the emotions of audience, a principle known as the Kuleshov effect. He also developed the theory of creative geography, which is the use of the action around a cut to connect otherwise disparate settings into a cohesive narrative.

The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, officially the S. A. Gerasimov All-Russian University of Cinematography, a.k.a. VGIK, is a film school in Moscow, Russia.