Mark Semyonovich Donskoy (Russian: Марк Семёнович Донско́й; 6 March [O.S. 21 February] 1901 – 21 March 1981) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter. Mark Donskoy was born in Odessa in a Jewish family. During the Civil War, he served in the Red Army (1921-1923), and was and held captured by the whites for ten months. Demobilized, he studied psychology and psychiatry at the Crimean medical school. In 1925 he graduated from the legal department of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Crimean University named after M.V. Frunze in Simferopol. At the same time he worked in investigative bodies, in the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR, and in the bar association. He released a collection of short stories about his life called “Prisoners” (1925).