Books in the KINO - Russian Film-makers' Companions series

Kira Muratova is a respected and original contemporary film director, yet her earliest works were not welcomed when they were shown just after the end of Brezhnev's 'period of stagnation'.

Between 1929 and 1970, five years before his death, Dmitri Shostakovich wrote almost 40 film scores for most genres of Soviet films, from Stalinist cult epics to classical literary adaptations. His long and distinguished cinema career has hitherto been overlooked.

Adored by Russian audiences for his commercially-oriented films, and loathed by the Russian intelligentsia for the same, Nikita Mikhalkov is one of the most successful, ambitious and controversial film- directors in the history of Soviet and Russian cinema.