Larisa Shepitko

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Lore & Background

Shepitko was born in Artemovsk, a town in Eastern Ukraine now known as Bakhmut. One of three children, she was raised by her mother, a schoolteacher, after her father, a military officer, divorced her mother and abandoned the family when she was very young. She recalled, 'My father fought all through the war. To me, the war was one of the most powerful early impressions. I remember the feeling of life upset, the family separated. I remember hunger and how our mother and us, the three children, were evacuated.' Because of this, her work often deals with loneliness and isolation. She graduated high school in Lviv in 1954, then moved to Moscow at sixteen to enter the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography as a student of Alexander Dovzhenko. She was a student of Dovzhenko's for 18 months until he died in 1956. She adopted his motto, 'Make every film as if it's your last.' She later stated, 'I never tried to take male directors as a model, because I know only too well that any attempt by my female friends, my colleagues—both junior and senior—to imitate male filmmakers makes no sense because it’s all derivative.'

Shepitko graduated from VGIK in 1963 with her prize winning diploma film *Heat* (or *Znoy*), made when she was 22 years old. During filming, she contracted Hepatitis A and often directed portions from a stretcher; temperatures on location could reach upwards of 50 degrees Celsius, causing the film to melt inside the camera numerous times. *Heat* won the Symposium Grand Prix ex aequo at the Karlovy Vary IFF in 1964. In 1967, she shot an episode for the portmanteau film *Beginning of an Unknown Era*, which was judged by authorities to show the Bolsheviks in an unflattering light and left unreleased. Her third film, *You and Me* (1969), was favorably received at the Venice Film Festival. Her last completed film, *The Ascent* (1977), won the Golden Bear at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival and was the official submission of the Soviet Union for the Best Foreign Language Film of the 50th Academy Awards.

Reader's Guide

Larisa Shepitko's significance lies in her status as one of the most prominent Soviet filmmakers of her era, despite working in a male-dominated environment. Her films often dealt with themes of war, loneliness, and isolation, drawing from her childhood experiences. *The Ascent* brought her international recognition, becoming the second film directed by a woman to win a Golden Bear. The film was shot in Murom during severe winters where temperatures reached 40 degrees below zero; Shepitko refused special treatment and wore only what the cast wore to embody their suffering. The film was only released because during its screening, Pyetr Masherov, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Belorussia, 'wiped away his tears and broke the crowd's stunned silence by speaking for forty minutes on the importance of the film.' Within several days, *The Ascent* was officially accepted without any changes. Her career was cut short in 1979 when she was killed in a car accident while scouting locations for the film *Farewell*. Her husband, Elem Klimov, created a 20-minute tribute documentary called *Larisa* to honor her legacy. Shepitko's growing international reputation led to an invitation to serve on the jury at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival in 1978 and an offer to direct in Hollywood, which she put off until she could improve her English.

Did You Know?

• Shepitko contracted Hepatitis A during the filming of *Heat* and often directed portions of the film from a stretcher.
• Temperatures on location for *Heat* could reach upwards of 50 degrees Celsius, causing the film to melt inside the camera numerous times.
• During the filming of *The Ascent*, temperatures reached 40 degrees below zero, and Shepitko refused special treatment, wearing only what the cast wore.
• Pyetr Masherov, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Belorussia, wiped away tears and spoke for forty minutes on the importance of *The Ascent*, leading to its official acceptance without changes.
• Shepitko's son Anton Klimov claims that Francis Ford Coppola screened his 1979 film *Apocalypse Now* to Shepitko before its release to get her thoughts on it.