Marlen Khutsiev

Marlen KHUTSIEV (1925, Georgia – 2019, Russia) made his debut in 1944 as an assistant decorator in Filmstudio Tblisi. In 1952, he graduated from the VGIK film school in Moscow and joined Odessa film studio. In 1956, he co-directed his first feature film Spring on Zarechnaya Street together with Felix Mironer. It became one of the biggest hits of 1950s Soviet cinema. In 1959, he started working on Ilyich’s Gate. By the time it was finished in 1964, its critical view of Stalinism and portrayal of daily life in the Soviet Union was met with much criticism, including from Nikita Khrushchev, and half of its original runtime was cut down to 90 minutes. After being released under a different title, I Am Twenty, the film was nominated for a Golden Lion and won the Special Jury Prize in Venice. In 1971, he directed the documentary The Scarlet Sail of Paris before taking a break from directing, which was only interrupted to finish deceased friend Mikhail Romm’s And I Still Believe (1974). Khutsiev began teaching at VGIK in 1978, and eventually returned to filmmaking in 1983, directing Epilogue, his first film in colour. In 1990, a restored version of Ilyich’s Gate screened at IFFR. He made his final feature film Infinitas in 1992. His final work was a segment of Venice 70: Future Reloaded (2013). He was a much-acclaimed filmmaker, receiving numerous national honours, a Lifetime Nika Award in 2006 and a Leopard Career Award at Locarno in 2015.