Marlen Khutsiev

Marlen Khutsiev
Marlen Khutsiev (right) is decorated with the order for Services to the Fatherland, 3rd class by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2001.
Born	4 October 1925 (1925-10-04) (age 86) Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR
Occupation	Director, screenwriter
Years active	1952–present

Marlen Martynovich Khutsiev (Russian: Марле́н Марты́нович Хуци́ев; born October 4, 1925 in Tbilisi) is a Georgian-born Soviet and Russian filmmaker best known for his cult films from the 1960s, which include I Am Twenty and July Rain. He was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1986.

Biography

Khutsiev's father, Martyn Levanovich Khutsishvili (the family's original Georgian surname), was a lifelong Communist who was purged by Stalin in 1937. His mother, Nina Mikhailovna Utenelishvili, was an actress. Khutsiev studied film in the directing department at the VGIK, graduating in 1952. He worked as a director at the Odessa film studio from 1952 to 1958, and worked full-time as a director at Mosfilm from 1965 onwards.

Khutsiev's first feature film, Spring on Zarechnaya Street (1956), incapsulated the mood of the Khrushchev Thaw and went on to became one of the top box-office draws of the 1950s. Three years later, Khutsiev launched Vasily Shukshin "as a new kind of popular hero" by starring him in Two Fyodors.^[1] His two masterpieces of the 1960s, however, were panned by the authorities, forcing Khutsiev into something of an artistic silence. Since 1978, Khutsiev has taught film directing master classes at the VGIK.

His 1991 film Infinitas won the Alfred-Bauer Prize at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival.^[2]

References

1. ^ Quoted from: Stalinism and Soviet Cinema, ed. by Richard Taylor, D. W. Spring. Routledge, 1993. p. 168.
2. ^ "Berlinale: 1992 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1992/03_preistr_ger_1992/03_Preistraeger_1992.html. Retrieved 2011-05-27. 

External links

• Marlen Khutsiev at the Internet Movie Database

Persondata
Name	Khutsiev, Marlen
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	4 October 1925
Place of birth	Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR
Date of death
Place of death