Yuri Ilyenko

Yuri Ilyenko (Cherkasy, Ukraine, 1936) spend the war as a child in Siberia. In Moscow he studied at the Cinematographic Institute. He went to work at the Yalta Film Studio in the Crimea, where he made three films as a director. In 1963 Ilyenko joined the Dovzhenko Film Studio in Kiev where he worked with Paradyanov on Shadows of Foreign Ancestors, a major international success which was ignored at home. His next film, A Spring for the Thirsty was banned for more than twenty years. Only in 1968 did he make a film which could be shown in his own country: A White Bird with a Black Spot. Ilyenko has been cameraman on five films by other directors.