was born in Chelyabinsk in 1955. In 1983, he graduated from the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (documentary faculty, A.S. Kochetkov’s workshop). He worked with Sverdlovsk film studio, and Nikita Mikhalkov’s studio “TRITE” until founding his own studio “Ostrov” in 1999. Since 1998, he has been working as a professor at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). Winner of multiple Russian and international awards.

(selected filmography) Grinder, 1980; Island, 1981; Life: That is All, 1984; Varvara's Key, 1985; Lady Tundra, 1986; …A proshloe kazhetsya snom, 1988; Chastushka. ХХ century, 1989; Born in the USSR: Age 7, 1990; Mystery of Marriage, 1992; Murder of the Emperor…, 1995; Moment of Silence, 1995; Born in USSR: Age 14, 1998; Moscow Angel, 2001; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. To Live without Lies, 2001; Georgiy Zhzhenov. The Russian Cross, 2003; Terrestrial and Celestial, 2004; Yuz, Jazz, Irka and the Dog, 2005; Born in the USSR: Age 21, 2007; The Word, 2008; Twilight of Gods, 2009; River of Life, 2011; Soyuz in Tropics, 2011; Born in the USSR: Age 28, 2012; Philosophy of a Smooth Way, 2014; Rings of the World, 2015.