Larisa Shepitko

Larisa Efimovna Shepitko (6 January 1938, Artemivsk, Ukrainian SSR – 2 June 1979, Kalinin Oblast) was a Soviet film director. She went to the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow as a student of Alexander Dovzhenko. She was a student of Dovzhenko''s for 18 months until he died in 1956. Shepitko graduated from VGIK in 1963 with her prize winning diploma film, Heat, made when she was 22 years old. It tells the story of a new farming community in Central Asia during the mid 1950s.

Shepitko's next film Wings concerns a much-decorated female fighter pilot of World War II. The pilot, now principal of a vocational college, is out of touch with her daughter and the new generation. The film aroused considerable Soviet press controversy at the time, as films were not meant to depict conflicts between children and parents (Vronskaya, 1972 p 39).

Shepitko''s third film was You and I (1971). This was her only film in colour. It was favourably received at the Venice Film Festival, but lacked proper public exposure in the Soviet Union.