His very first film “Taxi-Blues” released in 1990 came as a true revelation and a subject of controversy and slam-bang discussion; it was marked with the special prize of the Cannes film festival. His recent work, “The Island”, a most piercing drama, cannot but leave a lasting impression. Pavel Lungin is a well-known Russian film-director for some reasons dwelling in Paris.

Pavel Semyonovich Lungin was born in Moscow on July 12, 1949. His mother, Liliana Lungina, is famous for her brilliant Russian translations of Astrid Lindgren’s books. His father, Semyon Lungin, a well-known script-writer, wrote scenarios (with his co-author Ilya Nusinov) for such popular movies as Agoniya (Agony, 1981), Vnimanie, cherepakha! (Attention, Turtle! 1970), Dobro pozhalovat (Welcome, or No Trespassing, 1964), and others.

In 1971 Pavel Lungin graduated from the Applied Linguistics Department of the Moscow State University and in 1980 from the Higher Scenario Courses, the workshop of Georgi Daneliya and Mikhail L'vovsky. Lungin made his debut in filming as a script-writer, with the film Vsyo Delo V Brate (It’s all about the brother) in 1976. Later he wrote scenarios for Konets Imperatora Taygi (The End of Taiga’s Emperor, 1978) and Nepobedimyy (The unconquerable, 1983).

Taksi-Blyuz (Taxi Blues) filmed by Lungin in 1990 after his own script became one of his most notable works. Similarly to Andrei Tarkovsky’s diploma work Katok i skripka (1960) the film reveals a certain conflict and a strange bond between two protagonists, a musician and a worker, the brilliant duet of actors Pyotr Mamonov (famous Russian musician and poet) and Pyotr Zaychenko.

The Luna-Park featuring a story about an anti-Semite muscleman (Andrei Gutin), who sets off to look for his Jewish father (Oleg Borisov). This movie provoked no enthusiasm among critics.

The year 1996 saw the release of the film-director’s third movie – Ligne de vie (Liniya zhizni (Russian), The Line of Life), an international story with participation of well-known actors such as Vincent Perez, Tatyana Meshcherkina, and Armen Dzhigarkhanyan.

The next film, Svadba (The Wedding, 2000) took a special prize of the jury for casting at the Cannes festival. The scene of the story is laid in a small miners’ town where the heroine returns after a long absence. The film features Mariya Mironova, the daughter of the famous Andrei Mironov, and an actress of Lenkom Theatre, and Marat Basharov.

In the criminal drama Oligarkh (Tycoon: A New Russian, 2002) reminding of the story of Boris Berezovsky, Lungin shows to the world the face of Russian capitalism, which, as it is usual with the film-director, turns human. Vladimir Mashkov, Mariya Mironova, and Andrei Krasko play the leads.

The criminal comedy Bednye Rodstvenniki (The Poor Relation) released in 2005 is a story of a person who charges money from people to help them find their lost relatives. Sergei Garmash and Konstantin Khabensky are starring in the film.

In the same year Lungin debuted on Russian television with his TV serial Delo o mertvih dushah (The case of dead souls) after Gogol’s works.

Lungin’s last film Ostrov (The Island, 2006) is a penetrating drama of sublimation of the soul: the monk Anatoly, once a poor-spirited youth whom fascists made shoot his fellow to save his own life, acquires a gift to heal people. Two parsons, actually Anatoly’s two only friends (brilliantly played by Viktor Sukhorukov and Dmitri Dyuzhev) by the end of the story realize he succeeded in healing them, too. Pyotr Mamonov playing the lead is peerless as usual.

According to the official site of Lungin Studio, in the mid October the film-director finished another feature film under the title Cruelty. In 2007 Lungin is going to release Vetka Sireni (Lilacs), a life story of Sergei Rachmaninoff.

    Official site of Pavel Lungin
    

Vera Ivanova and Mikhail Manykin

Sources:
   
  
    www.peoples.ru