Andrey Konchalovsky

Andrej Sergejevich Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky was born in Moscow, into a family of intellectuals and artists on August 20, 1937. His father, the writer of children’s novels Sergei Mikhalkov, wrote the USSR anthem, while his younger brother is the famous director Nikita Mijalkov. He studied from a very young age at the Moscow Conservatory. Everything presaged that he was going to be a great pianist, until he met Andrei Tarkovsky, with whom he co-wrote his feature film On Him Andrei Rublev , in 1968.

He made his film debut withThe first teacher , about a teacher in a small town who must teach humble peasants the principles of the recent Russian Revolution. The film made a subtle critique of the Soviet regime, but it was still released smoothly to great acclaim. Emboldened, he went further in his criticism with The Happiness of Asia ( Klyachinoy, kotoraya Iyubita, da ne vyshla zamuzh ), about a single mother who decides to raise her child alone. On the tape, the director raised his doubts about the future of the USSR with great intelligence and restraint, for which it was censored and was not released until 21 years later.

To ensure that the regime did not harass him, he filmed a couple of adaptations of classics, Home of the Petty Nobility , based on the work of Ivan Turgenev, and Uncle Vanya (1971) , based on the famous work of Anton Chekhov . the epicSiberiada , which had his brother Nikita Mijalkov as an actor, reconstructs the most outstanding events that occurred in Siberia in the 20th century, through the story of two families. He won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, and made him known internationally, to the point that he was hired in Hollywood.

His first American film wasLos amantes de María , a drama about emotional deprivation in which Nastassja Kinski played a woman who meets the great love of her life, a soldier who has just returned from World War II. The girl’s father was played by the legendary Robert Mitchum .

His next job surprised locals and strangers. From a script based on an idea by Akira Kurosawa he directedHell’s Train , featuring two prisoners who escape on a drifting freight train after the engineer’s death from a heart attack. After films with little impact, such as the interesting drama The Anxiety of Life , with Julie Andrews as a violinist, or The Circle of Power , about Stalin’s private projectionist, she returned triumphantly to the field of action withTango and Cash , with Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell as competitive cops.

In the mid-90s he returned to Russia with the comedy Kurochka Ryaba , although he continued to work occasionally in the United States, in the seriesThe Odyssey , produced by Francis Ford Coppola , and the TV movie The Lion in Winter . He won the Silver Lion in Venice with Dom Durakov , about a Chechen mental hospital. The blockbusterThe 3D Nutcracker reconstructs the famous tale that gave rise to Tchaikovsky’s ballet.

As for his personal life, Konchalovsky has not stopped changing partners. He divorced the Kazakh actress Natalia Arinbasorova, with whom he had two children, and has since been with Irina Kandat, Viviane Godet and currently with the Russian actress Yuliya Vysotskaya .