Nikita Mikhalkov

Soviet and Russian actor and film director, People's Artist of the RSFSR.

He was born on October 21, 1945 in Moscow. Mikhalkov started acting in movies at the age of 14. In 1960 he played the role of a schoolboy parodying an Orthodox priest in Vasily Ordynsky's "Clouds over Borskoe", in 1961 - in Genrikh Oganesyan's "Adventures of Krosh". At 18, he played a major role in Georgiy Daneliya's "I Step Through Moscow" and sang there a still popular song of the same name, after which he became widely known.

In 1974 the screens of the country saw Mikhalkov's first film "A Friend among Strangers, a Stranger among a Friend".

The decade of 1974-1984 was very fruitful for Mikhalkov. Almost every year his films were released in the country, they received international recognition, won numerous prizes at international and all-Union festivals. Also at the turn of the 1980s, Mikhalkov made many successful films. His most famous roles are: "Siberiad" directed by Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky (1979), "Station for Two" (1982) and "Cruel Romance" (1984).

At the end of the 80s Mikhalkov creates a producer's association "Studio TriTE" (Creativity, Partnership, Labor), which successfully works to this day. The first film produced with the help of the association was Mikhalkov's Urga - The Territory of Love (1991), a parable about a Mongolian couple living in the steppes. The film was a great success at international film festivals and was nominated for a Nika Award in 5 categories and for an Oscar in the category "Best Foreign Film". He defended the world-famous director Sergei Bondarchuk against the "perestroika" critics.

Since January 1992 Nikita Mikhalkov has been a member of the presidium of the Russian International Fund of Culture. On May 21, 1993 Nikita Mikhalkov was elected Chairman of the Russian Fund of Culture (replacing the academician Dmitry Likhachev).

In 1993 Mikhalkov released the film "Anna. From 6 to 18," about the life of his daughter Anna. In 1994, he directed the film "Burnt by the Sun. The movie got a lot of awards, including the Grand-Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar for the best foreign movie.

In 1998 Nikita Mikhalkov was elected Chairman of the Union of Filmmakers of Russia.

In 1999 the film "The Barber of Siberia" was released. Mikhalkov also took part in the film "The State Counselor" (2005; director-director: Filipp Yankovsky). Interestingly, according to some reports, the ancestor of Nikita Sergeevich - Vladimir Sergeevich Mikhalkov (1816-1900) - was a full State Councilor.

In 2007 Nikita Mikhalkov received the "Special Lion" award at the 64th Venice Film Festival for his film "12" and his contribution to cinema.

In December 2008 the Russian Union of Filmmakers did not elect Mikhalkov as a delegate to its VII Congress. In response, Mikhalkov called several hundred delegates to the Congress of Russian Filmmakers "a theater of Lilliputians. Because several members of the Union declared the vote illegitimate (as 184 out of 567 delegates were absent), and because the Russian Ministry of Justice warned of a possible refusal to register the results, the question of the Chairman of the Union remained open. As a result, the Union was in danger of being closed. Proponents of Mikhail Mikhailov (actor Vasily Livanov, director Vladimir Naumov, Gosfilmofond director Nikolai Borodachev, and filmmaker Klim Lavrentiev) filed a complaint about the illegitimacy of the 7th Congress of the Union. In response, the newly elected directors of the Union sent three letters to the Moscow and Presnensky prosecutor's offices and to the Department for Combating Economic Crimes, demanding an investigation of Mikhalkov's economic activities. On March 17, Presnenskii Court of Moscow declared the results of the VII Congress of the Union illegal.