Eclipse from the Criterion Collection

Larisa Shepitko

Edition no. 11

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Release Date: Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Country of Release: USA
MSRP: $29.95

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Wings | The Ascent

Licensor Information

Mosfilm

Directed by: Larisa Shepitko

Featuring: Maya Bulgakova, Boris Plotnikov, Zhanna Bolotova, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Pantelemion Krymov, Sergei Yakovlev, Leonid Dyachkov, Lyudmila Polyakova, Vladimir Gorelov, Victoria Goldentul, Yury Medvedev, Anatoly Solonitsin, Nikolay Grabbe, Nikolay Sektimenko

The career of Larisa Shepitko, an icon of sixties and seventies Soviet cinema, was tragically cut short when she was killed in a car crash at age forty, just as she was emerging on the international scene. The body of work she left behind, though small, is masterful, and her genius for visually evoking characters' interior worlds is never more striking than in her two greatest works: Wings, an intimate yet exhilarating portrait of a female fighter pilot turned provincial headmistress, and The Ascent, a gripping, tragic wartime parable of betrayal and martyrdom. A true artist who had deftly used the Soviet film industry to make statements both personal and universal, Shepitko remains one of the greatest unsung filmmakers of all time.

Year: 1966 | 1977
Time: 85 | 111 min.