Today at the age of 74 died the great Russian director, scriptwriter, actor and producer Alexey German.

Andrey Tarkovsky highly respected his talent calling his film “My friend Ivan Lapshin” the greatest Russian film of all times.



His son Alexey German Jr. wrote in his blog:

The last time I saw him in consciousness, he dictated a letter in support of the”Lenfilm” Studio (Main film studio in St. Petersburg that was famous during the Soviet times and was in danger of selling out to private companies not related to cinema) Lenfilm Studio where he worked for many years of his life and in his last years tried to save from oblivion costing him most of his health. For me, my father has always been a model of dignity, generosity and integrity

His last feature History of Arcanar Massacre based on the novel written by Strugatsky brothers, Hard To Be a God (1964) was close to completion. The director worked on this project for a long 14 years and was a struggle for him.

Alexander Pozdnyakov – the director of his biographical film German: behind the camera (2008) said:

After the release of his movies Soviet cinema could no longer be the same. He brought to the cinema new truth of life, the authenticity of human relations with ruthlessness of naked realism. His style was very much like a documentary requiring a titanic amount of work by the director to obtain that quality. For his movies he even picked up ordinary looking people. This tendency became a major feature of the Leningrad school of war films, which influenced many Russian and foreign directors.

Here you can watch the excerpts from The Chronicle of Arcanar Massacre Alexey German’s last film which will premier in Russian movie theaters soon.



Here you can read an article The Strange Case of Russian Maverick Aleksei German of well-known film critic Anton Dolin who wrote several books devoted to German.

The full filmography:

1967 – Sedmoy sputnik (The Seventh Companion)

1971 – Proverka na dorogakh (Trial of the Road)

1976 – Dvadtsat dney bez voyny (Twenty Days Without War)

1984 – Moy drug Ivan Lapshin (My Friend Ivan Lapshin)

1998 – Khrustalyov, mashinu! (Khrustalyov, My Car!)

2013 – Istoriya Arkanarskoy rezni (The Chronicle of the Arkanar massacre)

In preparation of this post I borrowed material from Russian source Ria Novosti