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In 1931, Russian director Nikolai Ekk made the landmark film, The Road to Life, the Soviet Union's first sound feature and a fascinating chronicle of the attempts to rehabilitate the scores of wandering teenagers who were lost and orphaned following WW I and the Revolution. Unfortunately, Ekk's subsequent films were unable to match the technical splendor and drama of that film. Born in Moscow, Ekk studied filmmaking under such legends as Eisenstein and Pudoykin and got his start as a director making documentaries. In 1936, he directed the first Russian color film Nightingale.