The definitive timeline for the early screening of Dziga Vertov’s 1929 masterpiece has been established for the first time. This illustrated paper looks at the details of the first showing of the film in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Moscow, and Germany. The earliest (pre-release) review of the film in 1928 has been translated into English for the first time, and the paper includes other reviews and commentary on the film in the Soviet Union and Germany.