In the 1920s, after Mikhail Kaufman returned from the Russian Civil War, Vertov offered him the opportunity to participate in his newsreel series Kino-Pravda as a cameraman.

Mikhail Kaufman directed photography for several films, including Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera (1929).

The film is built around meta-reference and is full of innovative visual effects: in it, Kaufman acts as a cameraman and is seen shooting the film while walking on high bridges, hanging off the side of a train, climbing a smokestack and crawling underground with miners – all in order to get the best shot.

His brother's wife, Yelizaveta Svilova, was editor and part of the "Council of Three" who "proclaimed a 'death sentence' on the cinema that came before, faulting it for mixing in 'foreign matter' from theater and literature.

[3] Shortly after the filming of Man with the Movie Camera, Kaufman and Vertov fell out over artistic differences.