Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky – a Soviet film director and screenwriter. People's Artist of the RSFSR (1980), laureate of the Lenin Prize (1990 – posthumously). Andrei Tarkovsky was born into a creative family: his father was a poet and translator, and his mother came from a noble family and graduated from the Literary Institute. In his youth Tarkovsky briefly studied in the Arabic department of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies and took part in a geological expedition in Siberia. He then entered VGIK, where he studied in Mikhail Romm's workshop. For his diploma work "The Steamroller and the Violin" Tarkovsky received the first prize at an international film festival in New York.

 

In 1961 Tarkovsky became a director at the Mosfilm studio. His full-length debut was the film "Ivan's Childhood" based on Vladimir Bogomolov's story "Ivan." In 1962 the director received for this film the Grand Prix "Golden Lion" of the 23rd Venice International Film Festival and the "Best Director" award at the VI International Film Festival in San Francisco.  In 1966 Tarkovsky completed work on the film "Andrei Rublev." In 1969 a French company that had acquired the rights for foreign distribution showed the film at the Cannes Festival, where it was screened out of competition and received the FIPRESCI Prize.

The director's last work was the film "The Sacrifice," shot in Sweden. Andrei Tarkovsky died in Paris in 1986 and was buried at the Russian Cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. In 1990 he was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize.