- Grigori Chukhrai
Grigori Naumovich Chukhrai ( _uk. Григорiй Наумович Чухрай, _ru. Григорий Наумович Чухрай;
May 23 ,1921 --October 28 ,2001 ) was a prominentfilm director andscreenwriter in the formerSoviet Union . He is the father of directorPavel Chukhrai .He was born in
Melitopol in theZaporizhia Oblast ofUkraine . A decorated veteran ofWorld War II , Chukhrai's wartime experiences profoundly affected him and the majority of his films were connected with events of the War. At war's end, he studied filmmaking at the Soviet State Film School and then developed his craft as a director's assistant at theKiev Film Studio. By the mid 1950s, he began writing and directing his own films, gaining cinematic recognition outside the Soviet Union at the 1957Cannes Film Festival with his film "Sorok pervyj" (The Forty-first).In 1959, Chukhrai co-wrote and directed his greatest work, "
Ballad of a Soldier ". A story of love and the tragedy of war made without the usual Soviet propaganda, the film received great acclaim at home earning the prestigiousLenin Prize . It was heralded internationally for both its story and cinematic technique and at Cannes in 1960 the film was awarded a special jury prize for "high humanism and outstanding quality." "Ballad of a Soldier" overcame theCold War barrier and premiered in theUnited States in 1960 at theSan Francisco International Film Festival inSan Francisco, California . The film won the Festival's Golden Gate Award, for Best Picture and for Best Director for Grigori Chukhrai. Playing worldwide, the following year it earned theBAFTA Award for Best Film . Grigori Chukhrai and script co-writerValentin Yezhov were nominated for anAcademy Award for Writing Original Screenplay .Chukhrai's next film, released in 1961, was titled "Chistoye nebo" (Clear Skies) and told the story of a Soviet pilot who survived Nazi imprisonment during the war but was later accused of being a spy. It was one of the first Soviet films to deal with some of the repressive and questionable antics under the Soviet leadership of Premiere,
Joseph Stalin .In 1984, at age 63, Grigori Chukhrai directed his final film. He wrote a book of war memoirs and in 1994, for his lifetime contribution to film, Chukhrai was given a
Nika Award , the Russian film industry's equivalent of an Oscar.Grigori Chukhrai died of heart failure in Moscow in 2001 at the age of eighty.
Filmography
*"
Ya nauchu vas mechtat... " (I'll Teach You to Dream) (1984)
*"Zhizn' prekrasna " (Life Is Beautiful) (1979)
*"Tryasina " (Untypical Story) (1978)
*"Pamyat" (film) (Memory) (1971)
*"People!" (1966)
*"Zhili-byli starik so starukhoj " (There Was an Old Couple) (1965)
*"Chistoye nebo " (Clear Skies) (1961)
*"Ballada o soldate" (Ballad of a Soldier) (1959)
*"Sorok pervyj" (The Forty-first) (1956)
*"Nazar Stodolya " (1955)External links
* [http://www.russia-ic.com/culture_art/theatre/172/ Ballad of a Film-Director: Grigorii Chukhrai]
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