Anatoliy Kokush

Who is Anatoliy Kokush?

Anatoliy Kokush is a Ukrainian film engineer, businessman, and inventor. In 2006, he was awarded two Oscars. The awards were in the Scientific and Engineering Award category: one was awarded "for the concept and development of the Russian Arm gyro-stabilized camera crane and the Flight Head"; the other was awarded "for the concept and development of the Cascade series of motion picture cranes". Kokush has also been recognized by Ukraine's then-First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko for his contributions to Ukrainian cinema and around the world.

Kokush graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Film Engineers in 1974. He then started working for Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kiev.

In the 1980s Kokush founded the Ukrainian film and television company Filmotechnic. He explained that the machine known as the Russian Arm is actually called Autorobot, and was given the nickname as a joke in the early nineties when Americans in Hollywood joked that "the Russian Arm is back in America again". His company, Filmotechnic helped film such major Hollywood pictures, as Titanic, War of the Worlds, Casanova, and also the wuxia film Hero, many Russian blockbusters, as well as Ukrainian films.