Yuli Yakovlevich Raizman was born and lived in Moscow. In 1924 he graduated from the Faculty of Social Studies of the 1st Moscow State University and took up the job of an assistant of the film director Yakov Protazanov at Mezhrabpom-Rus Film Studio.

Starting from 1931 he worked as a film director at the Mosfilm Studio, where he collaborated with the scriptwriter Yevgeny Gabrilovich.

From 1944 to 1964 Yuli Yakovlevich Raizman was a teacher and professor heading a directing and acting workshop at VGIK (All-Union Institute of Cinema).

His first works as the film director were The Circle (1927), and The Convict Prison (1928). The modern theme was the central in his creativity. He directed the film The Earth Thirsts (1930) about young conquerors of the desert, and The Pilots (1935). In 1937 Raizman released one of the best Russian historical films – The Last Night.

His next rise was the love drama Mashenka (1942) launched into production even before World War II; it came to be one of the most moving, heartfelt and tender pictures not only in Soviet cinema, but in world cinema as well. In 1945 Raizman created the documentary Berlin about the war.

In 1948 after Joseph Stalin’s criticism of Raizman’s lyrical comedy The Train Heads to the East he was transferred to the Riga Film Studio.

The disgrace of the film director went on in the early 1950s due to his Jewish roots: he found himself in the company of the so-labeled “stateless cosmopolitans” and was dismissed from filming for several years.

He came back with Life Lesson (1955) dwelling on acute moral problems of those days within the framework of everyday family drama.

One of the most significant and talented Raizman’s works as a film director was The Communist (1958); its protagonist Vasily Gubanov (brilliantly played by the vivid actor Yevgeni Urbansky) became one of the legendary heroic characters of Soviet cinema. From then on Raizman ranked among the most venerable Soviet directors. He fruitfully worked in the 1960s-1980s, having created a number of films, which became a success among the viewers and stirred public interest.

In the films What if it is love? (1962), Your Contemporary (1968), and The Courtesy Visit (1973) Raizman investigated social and moral laws of modern life, having taken the position of active art. Six times (!) he became the winner of the State Award of the USSR (in 1941, 1943, 1946 - twice, 1950, and in 1952).

Yuli Raizman died on 11th December 1994, aged 90. He was laid to rest next to his wife at the Troekurovsky Cemetery in Moscow.

The colleagues called him a sincere singer of everyday life, whereas less lyrically minded censors and critics wrote in their reviews of his films “shows the greatness of ordinary matters of Soviet citizens”.

In 2003 a memorial plate was fixed on the wall of his house. The sculptor depicted Yuli Raizman as a young person, just as young as his films still remain to be.

“I never had a permanent desire to film. It appeared when I came across an idea, which captivated me, a vital problem which seemed interesting to me. Then I became enthusiastic and started shaping the image of the future film. In general I tried to film only those things that were close to me. And those were human destinies, life with its everyday matters, love, and problems … It is the subject of art. This is what I was engaged in” – Yuli Raizman said.

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