Larisa Shepitko

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Though her name is now unjustly obscure, Larisa Shepitko was one of the boldest, most renowned filmmakers of the Soviet era. In her tragically short career, the Ukrainian-born auteur left behind only a handful of films—including the psychologically charged feminist character study WINGS and the shattering, spiritually transcendent World War II masterpiece THE ASCENT—but they rank among the greatest and most powerful works of Soviet cinema. These blazingly personal visions deserve to be rediscovered for their stunning visuals, masterful evocation of interior states, and profound humanism.

From The Calvert Journal:

"Larisa Shepitko was born 1938 in Armtervosk, eastern Ukraine. Her father, an army officer, abandoned the family when Shepitko was young, leaving her schoolteacher mother to raise three children alone. Her earliest memories were shaped by the Second World War and its aftermath, an experience she would continually return to in her art.

At the age 16, Shepitko enrolled in the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), where she received mentorship from the great filmmaker (and fellow Ukrainian) Alexander Dovzhenko, and met her future husband, Klimov. By 1964, Shepitko had already completed two shorts, The Blind Cook (1961) and Living Water (1962), and a feature film Heat (1963).

From the beginning, Shepitko's work was defined by its uncompromising quality, a core of steel evident on and off-screen. Shepitko was still a 22-year-old student, when she made Heat (1963), a drama centred on the struggle for survival on a state-run farm in Kyrgyzstan. Sparse, naturalistic and poetic, Heat centres on the face-off between an idealistic youth and a Stalinist farmer, set against the backdrop of the arid landscape. Shepitko drove her crew mercilessly, battling with heat so intense that the film stock melted in the camera, and refusing to shutdown filming even when struck down with hepatitis and forced to direct from a stretcher.

Yet, somehow, the director succeeded. The release of Heat caused a sensation, announcing Shepitko as a bold new talent. She went on to follow this early triumph with her first masterpiece, Wings (1966): the story a female fighter pilot turned school principal who struggles to readjust to life in peacetime. Maya Bulgakova, who plays the central character of Nadezhda, gives a devastating performance as a middle-aged woman unable to relate to her students, friends, or even her own daughter, trapped by the limited expectations of her new life. Throughout Wings, we see her gaze repeatedly, longingly, upwards, at the sky. "

The hauntingly beautiful, 20-minute Larisa (1980), about Soviet film director Larisa Shepitko, directed by Elem Klimov (Come and See)

A loving film tribute to Russian filmmaker Larisa Shepitko, who died tragically in a car accident in 1979 at the age of 40. This documentary by her husband, Elem Klimov, includes excerpts from all of Shepitko's films, and her own voice is heard talking about her life and art.

and from Criterion's Eclipse Box description:

The career of Larisa Shepitko, an icon of sixties and seventies Soviet cinema, was tragically cut short when she was killed in a car crash at age forty, just as she was emerging on the international scene. The body of work she left behind, though small, is masterful, and her genius for visually evoking characters' interior worlds is never more striking than in her two greatest works: Wings, an intimate yet exhilarating portrait of a female fighter pilot turned provincial headmistress, and The Ascent, a gripping, tragic wartime parable of betrayal and martyrdom. A true artist who had deftly used the Soviet film industry to make statements both personal and universal, Shepitko remains one of the greatest unsung filmmakers of all time.

"One way to trace Shepitko's legacy is through the profound impact her death had on her husband. The tragedy changed Elem Klimov forever, shaping the direction of his future filmmaking. In the immediate aftermath, Klimov dedicated himself to preserving Shepitko's legacy, making Larisa (1980) a moving tribute which features film clips, emotional interviews and recordings of Shepitko speaking her own words. He would also go on to complete Farewell himself using Shepitko's script, releasing his own version in 1983. In 1985, eight years after The Ascent, Klimov was to secure his international reputation with the release of his own anti-war masterpiece, Come and See."