Aleksandr Sokurov
Also Known As: Alexander Sokurov, Александр Сокуров, 알렉산드르 소쿠로프
Biography: Aleksandr Sokurov (born June 14, 1951) is a Russian director of avant-garde and independent films that have won him international acclaim. Described as a heir to Tarkovsky, spare, gloomy and contemplative, he often blurs lines between image and world. His noticable trademark and style includes long, accurate shots of real painterly compositions, disorted field of view, zooms and use of wide angle lenses. Often plotless with emphasis on aesthetics and impressionism his films are noted for philosophical approach to history and nature. Sokurov underlines the importance of film, not to yield to the modern audience laziness, and to stay away from mere entertainment. His most significant works include a feature film, Russian Ark (2002), filmed in a single unedited shot, Mother and Son (1997) and Faust (2011), which was honoured with the Golden Lion, the highest prize for the best film at the Venice Film Festival.
Department: Directing
Place of Birth: village Podorvikha, Irkutsk Region, RSFSR, USSR, (now Russia)
Birthday: June 14, 1951
Adult: No
Gender: Male
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Known For:
You Should Survive
Overview: 1945, an attack aviation regiment is based at the field airfield, which is served by a team of young girls. The last days of the war are coming... In one of the battles, Lieutenant Volynin’s attack aircraft, damaged by a shell fragment, landed in territory occupied by the Germans. Air gunner Shchepov carried the wounded commander out of the burning plane. With the help of the Polish teacher Anna, they managed to get to theirs. And everyday life at the front began again. A few days before the Victory, Dima Shchepov died. Volynin took the death of his friend seriously. But it was even harder for him to learn about the death of Anna, whom he loved and whom he promised to find after the war...
Genres: War Drama
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1981-05-01
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The Diary of St. Petersburg: Kozintsev's Flat
Overview: A documentary film about the Russian director Sergei Kosintsev.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1998-01-01
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And Nothing More
Overview: The picture is about the anti-Hitler coalition of the USSR, England and America, which developed as a counterweight to the aggressive policy of Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The unique newsreel footage of these years, shot by operators of different warring countries, is connected with today's thoughts of the author about the fate of the post-war world, about the humanitarian losses of both sides and about gaining unstable hopes for the unity of the world in countering evil.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1987-01-01
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Russian Ark
Overview: A ghost and a French marquis wander through the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, encountering scenes from many different periods of its history.
Genres: Drama Fantasy History
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 2002-05-22
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Petersburg Elegy
Overview: The story about the life of Shaliapin’s family, and an emotional generalization of the life of people in modern Leningrad.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1989-11-29
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Soviet Elegy
Overview: In "The Soviet Elegy" the long train of photos of the Soviet leaders, dead or alive, stops at the portrait of Yeltsin. At the time of shooting Yeltsin had fallen down from the assembly of the Communist Party deities, and participated in the earthly life through connections of different kinds.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1989-12-31
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Alexander Sokurov. Temptation
Overview: The film is dedicated to the life and work of the Russian director, who deservedly received worldwide recognition due to his incredible talent
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 2012-05-14
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Elegy of Life: Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya
Overview: A documentary about the famous musician Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 2006-04-21
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Edward Shelganov visiting Sokurov
Overview: Alexander Nikolayevich Sokurov talks with the young director of independent experimental cinema Edward Shelganov.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1997-01-01
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Voice of Sokurov
Overview: Five years in the making, based on six lengthy interviews filmed on six different locations in Saint Petersburg, we meet an outspoken artist who covers here his entire life and prolific career. The locations were Sokurov’s own favourites, where he felt at home.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 2014-06-14
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In One Breath: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark
Overview: Making of Russian Ark, with on camera personal views by members of the cast and crew of the major film.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-09-09
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The Last Days of Humanity
Overview: The panorama of human affairs encounters the “man with a movie camera”. His playground has no boundaries, his curiosity no limits. Characters, situations and places pitch camp in the life of a humanity that is at once the viewer and the thing viewed. But what are the last days of this humanity? Have they already passed? Are they now or still to come?
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: it
Release Date: 2023-05-08
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We Need Happiness
Overview: The life stories of two elderly women living in a remote region of Kurdish Iraq.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 2010-10-20
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An Example of Intonation
Overview: The second film by Sokurov featuring Boris Yeltsin as the principal character. Now he is the President of Russia, invested with power, bearing the full responsibility for the destinies of his distant compatriots as well as his closest kin and friends.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1991-01-01
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Alexander Sokurov: Questions about cinema
Overview: An encounter with the great Russian film director Alexander Sokurov, which gives rise to a lot of questions about his artistic stand and the problems he touches upon and resolves in his works. The film presents the director’s thoughts about the history of cinema, about the power of the sound and image, about the past and future of cinema, accompanied by fragments from his films and various archival materials.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2008-01-01
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Robert. A Fortunate Life
Overview: Aleksander Sokurov brings the treasures of the Hermitage back into the light by making films about artists and their paintings. He has chosen the painter Hubert Robert, who spent a long time in Italy, and whose preference was for creating ancient ruined landscapes and naturalistic portrayals of times past. He was successful with the wealthy, who bought his works from him. The camera pans across the paintings while Sokurov speaks of a happy era, when the artist was at one with the spirit of the times, and agreed with the taste of his clients. Just how far removed from us this is, is shown by pictures of a "Nô" performance which are inter-cut on the screen. No words are necessary to describe what everybody knows today.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1997-04-01
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Петербургский дневник: Квартира Козинцева
Overview:
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date:
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Francofonia
Overview: Master filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) transforms a portrait of the world-renowned museum into a magisterial, centuries-spanning reflection on the relation between art, culture and power.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2015-11-11
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Kira
Overview: Film about the work of Ukrainian film director Kira Muratova.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 2003-06-15
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Film about the film
Overview: Documentary film from the set of Igor Olshansky’s debut short film “Easter”. Igor Olshansky is a participant of Alexander Sokurov’s programme “Example of Intonation”, a non-commercial film support foundation.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 2013-06-05
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Elegy of a Voyage
Overview: This intimately narrated journey from Russia to Rotterdam, via rail, road and Finnish ferry, is a melancholy meditation on divinity, time and place in art, purpose (or its lack) and the loneliness of the soul. Passing through misty snowscapes, half-glimpsed cities and the icy night sea-swell.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 2001-06-01
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The Knot
Overview: The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn is a two-part Russian television documentary by Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The documentary shot in Solzhenitsyn’s home shows his everyday life and covers his reflections on Russian history and literature.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1998-12-04
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Sokurov
Overview: Poetic portrait of a filmmaker. The famous director reflects on creativity and love. His friends and associates take part in the film: artist Vladimir Shinkarev, engineer Vladimir Nikolaev, actress Elena Kramer (Spiridonova), director, film critic Oleg Kovalov, necrorealist directors Yevgeny Yufit, Igor Bezrukov.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 2006-11-18
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Oriental Elegy
Overview: A surreal journey of a displaced spirit as he wanders in the interminable darkness through the temporal landscape of a quaint and isolated feudal-era fishing village. Guided by a series of faintly illuminated rooms, the wandering spirit comes upon ancient souls who take on physical forms as they recount their personal stories of daily existence, loss, and tragedy in the peasant community. Intrigued by his initial visit to a curiously distracted elderly woman, the spirit returns to her home in order to ask a fundamental question - "What is happiness?" - an existential query that is innocently answered with innate humility and accepted unknowingness.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1996-04-26
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Leningrad Retrospective
Overview: A montage of Leningrad newsreel becomes a composite collage made up of documents-shots, divided in 16 parts, presenting the author's point of view on Russia and modern times. In the title, Sokurov appears as 'compiler' and the selection of the documents is just like an artistic process.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1990-01-01
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The Diary of St. Petersburg: Inauguration of the Monument to Dostoevsky
Overview: Petersburg Diary - Opening of the monument to Dostoevsky
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1997-04-04
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The Romanovs: Glory and Fall of the Czars
Overview: Yekaterinburg, Russia, July 17th, 1917. Czar Nicholas II Romanov and his entire family are brutally murdered by the Bolsheviks. This tragic event puts an end to the long dynasty that had ruled the country with an iron hand since the coronation of Michael I Romanov in 1613.
Genres: Documentary History TV Movie
Original Language: de
Release Date: 2013-09-01
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Simple Elegy
Overview: The office of the President of Lithuania, 1990. Inside, silence reigns, contrasting to the shouting of the crowds outside the windows of the governmental building. At the same time, this silence is mirrored by the intense silence of several women, whose faces remain on the screen for a long time. The silence is broken by music. The President plays the piano.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1990-02-03
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Moscow Elegy
Overview: A 1988 documentary film directed by Alexander Sokurov, about the later life and death of Soviet Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The film was originally intended to mark the 50th birthday of Tarkovsky in 1982, which would have been before his death. Controversy with Soviet authorities about the film's style and content led to significant delays in the production.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1987-04-04
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A Soldier's Dream
Overview: This small film came out of the material edited for Sokurov's five-hour documentary Spiritual Voices.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1995-06-29
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Agnès Varda: From Here to There
Overview: Agnès Varda travels around the world to meet friends, artists and filmmakers for an expansive view of the global contemporary art scene.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2011-10-01
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The Art of Time
Overview: Explores some of the most innovative attempts by contemporary artists, filmmakers, architects etc to explore multiple Temporalities and to counter the uniform sense of time promoted by our technology-driven society.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-10-10
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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Lightning strikes a tall tree
Overview: The film is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 2008-12-11
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VGIK: Teachers and Students Talk About the Profession
Overview: The story of VGIK teachers and students about the acting profession.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ru
Release Date: 1979-03-22
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