Marlen Khutsiev. How it all began

Abstract

A conversation with the Georgian filmmaker on the origins of his films, his first teachers and Soviet censorship

Born in Tbilisi (Georgia) in 1925 and trained at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, Marlen Khutsiev is a film director, screenwriter, actor and teacher, and was a significant protagonist of the Soviet New Wave of the 1950s and 1960s. His film Ilyich’s Gate (Zastava Ilitsa, 1965) became an unofficial symbol of cinema during the Khrushchev Thaw due to the problems it faced from the Soviet censors, whose reservations meant that it had to be completely re-edited. The new version of the film was released three years later under the new title of I am Twenty (Mne dvadzat let, 1965). In this previously unpublished interview, which took place in May 2014, Marlen Khutsiev takes us on a journey through his life and work, exploring his childhood, the VGIK years, the origins of his films and his problems with the Soviet censors.