PFA welcomes the return of Andron Mikhailkov-Konchalovsky, one of the leading artists of contemporary Soviet cinema. In his first film, The First Teacher, Konchalovsky spared no illusions in depicting the hardships and hostilities encountered by a naive Red Army cadre trying to break reactionary family and caste patterns in a rural Asian locale. This was followed by Asya's Happiness (1966), an even more daring venture into contemporary rural life in the USSR. Unable to continue in this controversial direction, Mikhailkov-Konchalovsky turned to the classics of Russian literature, with Turgenev's “Nest of Gentlefolk” and Chekhov's “Uncle Vanya.” More recently, Konchalovsky has made the spectacular Romance of Lovers (1974), an epic love story, and another epic on another theme - Siberia: past, present and future - in Siberiade. Mikhailkov-Konchalovsky is at least as well known for his screenwriting as for his directorial credits; for his brother, Nikita Mikhailkov, he wrote The Slave of Love, and for Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrei Rublev, generally hailed as the greatest Soviet film since those of Eisenstein.
