The Neptun film company and the Antik-Kwartiroff family

ABSTRACT The article explores the biographies of Pavel Antik, Anna Antik and Aleksandr Kvartirov (Alexander Kwartiroff), and the history of their film company Neptun founded soon after the February revolution in 1917. Operating in the very last years of the imperial film industry, Neptun engaged many of the prominent creative figures of the time and produced three films starring the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. After emigrating to Berlin, the Antik-Kwartiroff family briefly revived Neptun and produced Paul Leni’s celebrated expressionist film Waxworks (1924). The article reconstructs the company’s history through previously unknown biographical facts and unpublished photos from the archive of the family’s descendants.