The mother's brother was the dermatologist Alexander G. Lurie (1868–1954), a professor and chair of venereal skin diseases at the Kiev Postgraduate Medical Institute (1919–1954).

Kozintsov titled "Production of sulfuric matches in respect to sanitation" (sanitary-statistical research of sulfur-match factories Novozybkov district of the province of Chernigov, Starodub: Typography A.I.

Kozintsov also engaged in education and regional studies journalism, additionally he was author of the book "Alcoholism and the social struggle against it" (at the opening of Guardianship of sobriety, Starodub: Typography A.I.

The theater attracted him most of all; he began work with participation in the mural decorations of the famous spectacle of Kote Marjanishvili Fuente Ovejuna by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega.

In early 1920 he went to Petrograd and entered the class of Nathan Altman in the Free Art Workshops (formerly Imperial Academy of Arts[4] (today the St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after I. Y. Repin) and at the same time directed at the Studio Theater Comic Opera, led by Kote Marjanishvili.

In December 1921, Kozintsev contributed the "Salvation in the Trousers" section to the Manifesto of the Eccentric Theater,[5] (the other contributors were Leonid Trauberg, G. K. Kryzhitsky and Sergei Yutkevich), which was announced during a debate organized by them.

[4] The Adventures of Oktyabrina (1924) – their first short film was a continuation of their theatrical experiences based on their own script; it was an attempt to combine politics (to expose the NEPman who helped the imperialists) with outright buffoonery and according to Yury Tynyanov, "a rampant collection of tricks, which the directors amassed, starved for movies."

In the second eccentric short film Mishki versus Yudenich (1925) which no longer starred variety and circus actors who joined the directors from the theater (among them was Sergey Martinson), instead the actors were students of the film school, including Sergei Gerasimov, Janina Żejmo, Andrei Kostrichkin.

A script by the famous Russian writer Yury Tynyanov helped evolve his directorial vision, expressive visual choices and eccentric, on the verge of grotesque acting of actors led to the creation of a film which was stylistically in "the manner of Gogol."

The vigorous and organized working team FEKS sought in every movie to search for a new direction, and in 1927 also released a contemporary comedy Little Brother (1927) based on their own script, and immediately followed up with the historical melodrama The Club of the Big Deed (1927), scripted by Yury Tynyanov and G. Oxman, based on the material of the Decembrist uprising.

Beginning in August 1927, Kozintsev was a teacher at the Leningrad Institute of Performing Arts, which was merged with the film school FEKS.