Russian maestro Aleksandr Sokurov speaks to Jugu Abraham on Grigori Kozintsev and Andrei Tarkovsky, titans of Russian cinema

Background note on Russian filmmakers Sokurov and Kozintsev R ussian film director Aleksandr Sokurov (66) is famous for diverse reasons. Some recall his experimental feature film Russian Ark (2002) filmed in a single, unedited 90-minute shot with over 2000 actors in elaborate costumes and 3 live orchestras exploring several sections of the Hermitage museum in Saint Petersburg (Leningrad). Some recall his more recent feature film Faust (2011), honoured with the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The late film critic Susan Sontag, while including two Sokurov feature films among her 10 favorite films of the 1990s, stated “ There is no director active today whose films I admire so much .” Musician Nick Cave, in an interview published in the British newspaper “ The Independent, ” revealed “ I wept and wept from start to finish ” on viewing Sokurov’s Mother and Son (1997), a poetic experimental feature film with minimal spoken lines. In 1998, Sokurov made a documentary called Saint P...