This lightweight 35mm camera was patented in 1908 by France’s Joseph Jules Debrie and built by his son, André. The ‘Parvo’ was immensely popular in the silent era with European directors like Sergei Eisenstein, Joris Ivens, Leni Riefenstahl and Dziga Vertov.

The Debrie Parvo ‘L’ plays a vital on-screen role in Vertov’s experimental Soviet documentary Man with a Movie Camera (1929). Vertov presents the mechanical eye with a god-like point of view that sees truth as it records a new kind of social and political reality.