Nikolay Bogachev

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Stanislav Iosifovich Rostotsky (; 21 April 1922– 10 August 2001) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter, the recipient of the two USSR State Prizes and a Lenin Prize. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1974.

In 1942 he was enrolled in the Red Army. He left for the front line in a year. He served as a photojournalist in the 6th cavalry corps and traveled from Vyazma through Smolensk to Rivne.[10] In 1944 Rostotsky was seriously injured during the fight near Dubno when he was driven over by a Nazi tank. He survived only due to a trench where his body was partly buried. According to Rostotsky, one of his legs was ruined, as well as his rib cage and his hand. "In addition, a shell fragment hurt me in the head... Good thing the mates took my gun away — otherwise I would've probably shot myself. Because I spent 22 hours lying in that swamp, losing my consciousness, so I had time to think".

He was saved by one of the passing soldiers and then — by a front nurse Anna Chugunova who carried him to the hospital. Rostotsky later dedicated his film The Dawns Here Are Quiet to her.[11] As a result of gangrene he lost one of his legs (a below-knee amputation). He wore a prosthesis, yet never mentioned it and led an active life. Many people working with him didn't even realise he was disabled. He refused to use a walking stick despite the pain, especially during later years.

He was awarded the 1st class Order of the Patriotic War and the Order of the Red Star.[10]

He also served as a teacher at VGIK and the President of the Jury at the 9th Moscow International Film Festival in 1975, the 10th Moscow International Film Festival in 1977, the 11th Moscow International Film Festival in 1979,[15] the 12th Moscow International Film Festival in 1981[16] and the 13th Moscow International Film Festival in 1983. As a journalist he was a regular contributor to a number of film periodicals and biographical books, wrote about Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Kozintsev, Andrei Moskvin and Leonid Bykov.

Stanislav Iosifovich Rostotsky (; 21 April 1922– 10 August 2001) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter, the recipient of the two USSR State Prizes and a Lenin Prize. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1974.

Early years

Stanislav Rostotsky was born in Rybinsk on 21 April 1922 into a Russian-Polish family. His grandfather Boleslaw Rostotsky served as a General in the Imperial Russian Army and a prosecutor on Emperor's personal order. His father Iosif Boleslawovich Rostotsky (1890—1965) was an acclaimed doctor, docent, author of 200 monographs, as well as a secretary of the Scientific Medical Council at the People's Commissariat for Health. His mother Lidia Karlovna Rostotskaya (1882—1964) was a milliner turned a housewife; she was half-French. His brother Boleslaw Norbert Iosifovich Rostotsky (1912—1981) was a famous theater historian.

At the age of five, Stanilsav watched Battleship Potemkin and became obsessed with cinema. In 1936 he met Sergei Eisenstein and took part in his unfinished Bezhin Meadow movie as an actor. Eisenstein became his teacher and good friend later on. He convinced Stanislav that only a well-read and educated person may become a film director. This influenced his decision to enter the Institute of Philosophy and Literature in 1940, with an intention to enter VGIK.

In 1942 he was enrolled in the Red Army. He left for the front line in a year. He served as a photojournalist in the 6th cavalry corps and traveled from Vyazma through Smolensk to Rivne.[10] In 1944 Rostotsky was seriously injured during the fight near Dubno when he was driven over by a Nazi tank. He survived only due to a trench where his body was partly buried. According to Rostotsky, one of his legs was ruined, as well as his rib cage and his hand. "In addition, a shell fragment hurt me in the head... Good thing the mates took my gun away — otherwise I would've probably shot myself. Because I spent 22 hours lying in that swamp, losing my consciousness, so I had time to think".

He was saved by one of the passing soldiers and then — by a front nurse Anna Chugunova who carried him to the hospital. Rostotsky later dedicated his film The Dawns Here Are Quiet to her.[11] As a result of gangrene he lost one of his legs (a below-knee amputation). He wore a prosthesis, yet never mentioned it and led an active life. Many people working with him didn't even realise he was disabled. He refused to use a walking stick despite the pain, especially during later years.

He was awarded the 1st class Order of the Patriotic War and the Order of the Red Star.[10]

Career

During September 1944 at the age of 22 Stanislav joined VGIK to become a film director. His teacher was Grigori Kozintsev. He studied for seven years, simultaneously working as Kozintsev's assistant at the Lenfilm studio. In 1952 Rostotsky directed his graduation movie Ways-Roads. During the audition he met his future wife, an actress Nina Menshikova. Rostotsky received good recommendations and was sent to work at the Gorky Film Studio where he spent the next 35 years.

Between 1955 and 1989 Rostotsky directed and co-directed 12 motion pictures, one short film and one documentary Profession: Film Actor (1979) dedicated to his close friend Vyacheslav Tikhonov who started in five of his movies in the leading roles. Unlike many other directors, he cast his wife only once, in a supporting role in the film We'll Live Till Monday (1968). Their son — Andrei Rostotsky, a professional actor and stuntman — was also given only one role in the historical war picture A Squadron of Flying Hussars (1980) co-directed by Stanislav under a pseudonym of Stepan Stepanov. War was a running theme in most of his movies, referred to either directly or indirectly. He was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1974.

He also served as a teacher at VGIK and the President of the Jury at the 9th Moscow International Film Festival in 1975, the 10th Moscow International Film Festival in 1977, the 11th Moscow International Film Festival in 1979,[15] the 12th Moscow International Film Festival in 1981[16] and the 13th Moscow International Film Festival in 1983. As a journalist he was a regular contributor to a number of film periodicals and biographical books, wrote about Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Kozintsev, Andrei Moskvin and Leonid Bykov.

Late years

During the 1990s Rostotsky spent a lot of time at his house near the Gulf of Finland, fishing, as this was his favourite hobby. He turned to cinema only once — to act in the 1998 TV mini-series At Daggers Drawn, an adaptation of the classic novel of the same name (director Alexandr Orlov). He also took part in the Window on Europe film festival in Vyborg.

Rostotsky died on 10 August 2001 on his way to the festival. He felt a strong pain in the chest and managed to pull the car over. His wife called the ambulance, but the doctors were unable to save him. Stanislav Rostotsky was buried in Moscow on the Vagankovo Cemetery. In just a year his only son Andrei Rostotsky died tragically as he fell down a cliff while making preparations for his new movie.

Eldar Aleksandrovich Ryazanov (18 November 1927 – 30 November 2015) was a Soviet and Russian film director, screenwriter, poet, actor and pedagogue whose popular comedies, satirizing the daily life of the Soviet Union and Russia, are celebrated throughout the former Soviet Union and former Warsaw Pact countries.

Biography

Eldar Aleksandrovich Ryazanov was born in Samara. His father, Aleksandr Semyonovich Ryazanov, was a diplomat who worked in Tehran. His mother, Sofya Mikhailovna, was of Jewish descent.

In 1930, the family moved to Moscow, and soon his parents divorced. He was then raised by his mother and her new husband, Lev Mikhailovich Kopp. In 1937 his father was arrested by the Stalinist government and subsequently served 18 years in the correctional labour camps.

Ryazanov began to create films in the early 1950s. In 1955, Ivan Pyryev, then a major force in the Soviet film industry, suggested to him to begin work on his film Carnival Night. At first, Ryazanov refused, as he wanted to make "serious films", but then was convinced to begin, as Pyryev believed that "anybody could shoot a melodrama, but only a few can create good comedy. He won instant success, and began to release more films.

He was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1984, and received the USSR State Prize in 1977. He won the Nika Award for Best Director in 1991 for the film Promised Heaven.

Among his most famous films are Carnival Night (1955), Hussar Ballad (1962), Beware of the Car (1966), The Irony of Fate (1975), Office Romance (1977), The Garage (1980), A Railway Station for Two (1982) and A Cruel Romance (1984). Ryazanov's main genre was tragicomedy.

Illness and death

Ryazanov had an acute ischemic stroke in November 2014. He was admitted to a Moscow hospital on 21 November 2015 due to shortness of breath. He died around midnight on 30 November 2015, of heart and lung failure, at the age of 88.

Legacy

Ryazanov was one of the most successful film directors of the Soviet Union, and his films are still well-known in the post-USSR landscape. The Irony of Fate is still aired every December 31 in most post-USSR countries except for Ukraine. A street in Moscow was named after him in 2017, and a museum and memorial dedicated to his memory was opened on the site of his childhood home in Samara.

Vasily Makarovich Shukshin (25 July 1929 – 2 October 1974) was a Soviet Russian writer, actor, screenwriter and film director from the Altai region who specialized in rural themes. Also he began writing short stories in his early teenage years and later transition to acting by his late 20s.

Biography

Vasiliy Makarovich Shukshin was born on 25 July 1929 to a Russian peasant family of Moksha Mordvin origin in the village of Srostki near Biysk in Siberian Krai, Soviet Union (now in Altai Krai, Russia). In 1933, his father, Makar Leontievich Shukshin, was arrested and executed on the charges of participating in an "anti-kolkhoz plot" during the Soviet collectivization. He was only rehabilitated 23 years later, in 1956 His mother, Maria Sergeyevna, had to look after the survival of the entire family. By 1943 Shukshin had finished seven years of village school and entered an automobile technical school in Biysk. In 1945, after two and a half years at the school, but before finishing, he quit to work in a kolkhoz.

In 1946 Shukshin left his native village and worked as a metal craftsman at several enterprises. In 1949, Shukshin was drafted into the Navy. He first served as a sailor in the Baltic Fleet, then a radio operator on the Black Sea. In 1953 he was demobilized due to a stomach ulcer and returned to his native village. Having passed an external exam for high school graduation, he became a teacher of Russian, and later a school principal in Srostki.

In 1954 Shukshin entered the directors' department of the VGIK, studied under Mikhail Romm and Sergei Gerasimov, and graduated in 1960. While studying at VGIK in 1958, Shukshin had his first leading role in Marlen Khutsiyev's film Two Fedors and appeared in the graduation film by Andrei Tarkovsky.

In 1958 Shukhin published his first short story "Two on the cart" in the magazine Smena. His first collection of stories Сельские жители (Village Dwellers) was published in 1963. That same year, he became staff director at the Gorky Film Studio in Moscow. He wrote and directed Живёт такой парень (There Is This Lad). The film premiered in 1965, winning top honours at the All-Union Film Festival in Leningrad and the Golden Lion at the XVI International Film Festival in Venice. Shukshin was decorated with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1967), and was designated Distinguished Artist of the RSFSR (1969).

Since 1964, he was married to actress Lidiya Fedoseyeva, who also appeared in several of his films. They have a daughter, Mariya (born 1967), who is a TV presenter.

Shukshin died suddenly on 2 October 1974, on the motor ship Dunai, on the Volga river, while filming They Fought for Their Country. He is buried in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow