World’s oldest film school is celebrated by Russia with a silver centenary coin

Founded back in 1919 by the film director Vladimir Gardin, the Moscow Film School is the oldest running film school in the world. Responsible for countless famous names in Russian and Soviet cinema over the next 100 years and known since 1986 as the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, it became a university in 2008.

A new 1oz sterling silver coin from the Russian Central Bank marks the institutes centenary of existence and it’s a simple, but striking design. A background of lines of film strip, on which is placd the anthropomorphic logo of the university. The clean look favoured by the CBR works well and is instantly recognisable. Available now with a mintage of 3,000.

REVERSE: the logo of the Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK) against the background of a relief image of a film strip and the inscriptions below: ‘100 ЛЕТ’ (100 YEARS) and ‘ВГИК им. С.А. ГЕРАСИМОВА’ (VGIK n. a. S. GERASIMOV).

OBVERSE: the mirror field of the disc bears a relief image of the National Coat of Arms of the Russian Federation, over it along the rim there is the semicircular inscription “РОССИЙСКАЯ ФЕДЕРАЦИЯ” (RUSSIAN FEDERATION) framed on both sides by doubled rhombuses, below under the coat of arms there are indications of the precious metal and its fineness on the left and the fine metal content and the mint trade mark on the right, at the bottom in the centre, in three lines, there is an inscription “БАНК РОССИИ” (BANK OF RUSSIA), the denomination of the coin “3 РУБЛЯ” (3 RUBLES), and the year of issue “2019 г.” (2019).