Dimitri Devyatkin

Biography

In 1973, Dimitri Devyatkin became the first American to study at the U.S.S.R. State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. Devyatkin's Russian heritage and his direct interaction with people in the former Soviet Union have been central to his work. He traveled extensively in the former Soviet Union, both as a documentarian and as an organizer of medical and cultural exchanges with the United States. In the 1980s he also produced documentaries on the nuclear arms race, the fighting in El Salvador, and China. Devyatkin was among the original founders of The Kitchen in New York, and was a director of the 1st International Computer Arts Festival, also in New York.

Devyatkin was born in 1949. He received a B.A. in Cinema and Russian from the City University of New York, and studied at the U.S.S.R. State Institute of Cinematography and Moscow State University. Devyatkin has received numerous grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, Creative Artists Public Service (CAPS), and the National Endowment for the Arts, and has been artist-in-residence at Synaplse Video Center, Syracuse University. He lives in New York.