Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet film director, screenwriter and film theorist, widely considered one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. Born April 4, 1932 in Zavrazhye in the Russian SFSR, he studied under Mikhail Romm at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography before directing a small body of features that reshaped the visual and narrative language of art cinema. His films, including Ivan's Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror, Stalker, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice, explore spiritual and metaphysical themes and are known for their slow pacing, long takes, dreamlike visual imagery and preoccupation with nature and memory. After years of conflict with Soviet state authorities over his working methods and subject matter, Tarkovsky left the Soviet Union in 1979 and continued making films in Italy and Sweden. He set out his filmmaking philosophy in the 1986 book Sculpting in Time. He died of cancer in Paris on December 29, 1986, at the age of 54, having directed only seven features that remain foundational reference points for later art-house and festival cinema.