The popular Russian actor, director, screenwriter and playwright - People's Artist of Russia Andrei Sergeevich Smirnov - is known to the general public for his directorial works "Brest Fortress" and "Once upon a time there was a woman." The complex creative biography of the talented director during the Soviet era was associated precisely with the censorship, which “cut out” all important episodes marked “ideologically harmful” from his paintings. And in modern works, he is experiencing difficulties of a different order, including those associated with the financial aspect.
A native Muscovite and a native of a creative family (father - famous writer Sergei Smirnov, who wrote the novel "Brest Fortress") - Andrey Smirnov - during his professional career managed to realize himself both as a director, and in difficult times of "persecution of censorship", and as an actor … Behind the shoulders of the People's Artist of the Russian Federation today there are dozens of director's productions and acting films, which are always distinguished by their topicality and philosophical meaning.
Biography and career of Andrey Sergeevich Smirnov
On March 12, 1941, in pre-war Moscow, the future idol of millions of Russian fans was born. Despite the creative atmosphere in the family, Andrei grew up in a half-starved environment, when the scorched country was recovering with great difficulty after the Nazi invasion. Therefore, the young man was aimed at obtaining a working specialty. However, frequent visits to theatrical performances and passion for cinema played a good service. Therefore, after receiving a certificate of secondary education, he enters the VGIK at the directing department in the workshop of the famous Mikhail Romm.
In 1962, Andrei Smirnov graduated from the university and began to develop his professional career. Back in his student years, he made his film debut with cameo roles as an actor and shot two short films "Yurka - a Pantsless Team" (1961) and "Hey, Someone!" (1962). And in 1964, the war drama "A Span of the Earth" was released, which was highly appreciated by the cinematic community: viewers and professional critics. Despite the deafening success after such a beginning, further rapid ascent did not work.
The fact is that all of Andrei Smirnov's directorial work was distinguished by vitality and topicality, which ideological pathos sickened. And after the censorship "cleansing" the pictures turned out to be faceless and irrelevant. The breakthrough came after the 1970 premiere of the film Belorusskiy Vokzal, which in 1971 was awarded the main prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
After another "rejection" by the Soviet censorship in 1979 of the production film "Faithfully and Truthfully", Smirnov decided to stop his directorial activity and, in order to survive in the "eighties", switched to acting films. Currently, his filmography contains several dozen roles, among which the films should be highlighted: "Red Arrow" (1986), "Chernov / Chernov" (1990), "Casanova's Cloak" (1993), "His Wife's Diary" (2000), The Idiot (2003), The Moscow Saga (2004), The Apostle (2008), The Thaw (2013), The Optimists (2017).
The director's works of the last period include "Freedom in Russian" (2006) and "Once upon a time there was one woman" (2011).
And in the summer of 2017, Andrei Smirnov was disappointed with the disruption of filming the film Frenchman (working title) due to lack of funding.
Personal life of the artist
The first marriage of Andrei Smirnov with a colleague in the creative workshop Natalya Rudnaya (actress) was the reason for the birth of the daughters Avdotya and Alexandra.
With his second wife Elena Prudnikova, who is also an actress, the People's Artist of the Russian Federation is still happily married. In this family union, daughter Aglaya and son Alexei were born.
