At the Cannes Film Festival, Nostalghia was awarded the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury but was blocked from receiving the Palme d'Or by Soviet authorities. Tarkovsky left the Soviet Union in 1979 and directed the film Nostalghia and the accompanying documentary Voyage in Time. His final film produced in the Soviet Union, Stalker (1979) garnered him the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes. Viewing Tarkovsky as a dissident, Soviet authorities shut down the production after only a few performances. In 1976, Tarkovsky directed his only play-a stage production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet at the Lenkom Theatre. Solaris was loosely based on the novel of the same title by Stanislaw Lem and won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1972, he directed the science fiction film Solaris, which was a response to what Tarkovsky saw as the 'phoniness' of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). In 1966, he directed the biopic Andrei Rublev, which garnered him the International Critics' Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. His first feature film was 1961's Ivan's Childhood, considered by some to be his most conventional film. In 1956, he made his directorial debut with the student film The Killers, an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's eponymous short story.

He also directed a stage play and wrote a book.īorn in the Soviet Union, Tarkovsky began his career at the State Institute of Cinematography, where he directed several student films. In his thirty-year career, Tarkovsky directed several student films, seven feature films, co-directed a documentary, and was the author of numerous screenplays. His films are considered Romanticist and are often described as ' slow cinema', with the average shot-length in his final three films being over a minute (compared to seconds for most modern films).

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) was a Soviet filmmaker who is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors of all time.

Sculpting in time by andrei tarkovsky