Happy Birthday, Andrei Arsenyevich!

The 4th of April is a birthday of the Soviet film director and screenwriter Andrei Tarkovsky.
The son of a famous Russian poet Arseny Tarkovsky, he was born in the village of Ivanovo region. In 1951-1952 he studied Arabic at the Department of Middle East Department of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, then, in 1952-1953, he worked at the Research Institute of Nonferrous Metals and Gold, he worked in geological parties.
International fame came to him after the film - "Ivan's Childhood". This film got many prestigious film awards, including the "Golden Lion of St. Mark" Venice Film Festival.
In the future, all the pictures Tarkovsky became notable events of cultural life in the country, affecting the spiritual development of society. The film "Andrei Rublev" (1971) with Anatoly Solonitsyn in the title role was included into the list  'the 100 best films in the history of the cinema'. 

Tarkovsky's films are characterised by metaphysical themes, extremely long takes, and memorable images of exceptional beauty. Recurring motifs are dreams, memory, childhood, running water accompanied by fire, rain indoors, reflections, levitation, and characters re-appearing in the foreground of long panning movements of the camera. He once said, “Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless, collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away, relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema.”

Tarkovsky included levitation scenes into several of his films, most notably Solaris. To him these scenes possess great power and are used for their photogenic value and magical inexplicability.^[22]

Water, clouds, and reflections were used by him for its surreal beauty and photogenic value, as well as its symbolism, such as waves or the form of brooks or running water.^[23]

Bells and candles are also frequent symbols. These are symbols of film, sight and sound, and Tarkovsky's film frequently has themes of self reflection.

Tarkovsky developed a theory of cinema that he called "sculpting in time". By this he meant that the unique characteristic of cinema as a medium was to take our experience of time and alter it. Unedited movie footage transcribes time in real time. By using long takes and few cuts in his films, he aimed to give the viewers a sense of time passing, time lost, and the relationship of one moment in time to another.

Films directed by Tarkovsky (...)

1956	The Killers	Убийцы	Soviet Union	19 min.	Student film
1959	There Will be No Leave Today	Сегодня увольнения не будет	Soviet Union	46 min.	Student film
1961	The Steamroller and the Violin	Каток и скрипка	Soviet Union	46 min.	Student film
1962	Ivan's Childhood	Иваново детство	Soviet Union	95 min.
1966	Andrei Rublev	Андрей Рублёв	Soviet Union	205 min.
1972	Solaris	Солярис	Soviet Union	165 min.
1975	Mirror	Зеркало	Soviet Union	107 min.
1979	Stalker	Сталкер	Soviet Union	164 min.
1983	Nostalghia	Nostalghia	Italy/Soviet Union	125 min.
1983	Voyage in Time	Tempo di Viaggio	Italy	63 min.	Documentary film
1986	The Sacrifice	Offret	Sweden	149 min.

List of awards won by Andrei Tarkovsky 

more information here

1969	FIPRESCI prize	Won	for Andrei Rublev [1]
1972	Grand Prix Spécial du Jury	Won	for Solaris [1]
1972	Palme d'Or	Nominated	for Solaris [1]
1980	Prize of the Ecumenical Jury	Won	for Stalker [2]
1983	Grand Prix du cinéma de creation	Won	for Nostalghia [1]
1983	FIPRESCI prize	Won	for Nostalghia [1]
1983	Prize of the Ecumenical Jury	Won	for Nostalghia [2]
1983	Palme d'Or	Nominated	for Nostalghia [1]
1986	FIPRESCI prize	Won	for The Sacrifice [1]
1986	Prize of the Ecumenical Jury	Won	for The Sacrifice [2]
1986	Grand Prix Spécial du Jury	Won	for The Sacrifice [1]
1986	Palme d'Or	Nominated	for The Sacrifice [1]

To read the works by Andrey Tarkovsky or about him - here

Trailer to the film 'Stalker' prepared to the screening at the TV channel 'Kultura'