Awards :
Prix d’Etat de l’Union soviétique (1941. 1949, 1951, 1971); prix Lénine du Komsomol (1970); héros du Travail socialiste (1974), prix Lénine (1984).
Born in 1906 in Urals area of that days Russian Empire, Sergei Appolinarievich Gerasimov studied at the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) College of Arts and graduated from the Actors Department of the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Institute for Stage Arts in 1928. In early 1920s he joined FEKS group, founded by Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg. Firstly he acted in the Grigori Kozintsev's silent films, such as The Overcoat and New Babylon. In early 1930s he became a head of Acting and Directing Master Class in Lenfilm Studios. First film he wrote and directed was "Twenty-two Misfortunes" in 1930. Later he was appointed to produce the screen versions of famous classics of Socialist Realism. "The Young Guard" (1948), based on the novel by Alexander Fadeyev, combined a panoramic view of war with detailed studies of individual personalities. Gerasimov's screen version of Mikhail Sholokov's novel ''And Quiet Flows the Don'' (1957)- the two-part film was praised inside and outside the Soviet Union as a significant contribution to the development of Soviet film. Both these films were considered as the exemplary works by soviet authorities. In his last film "Leo Tolstoy", he starred in the role of Leo Tolstoy together with his wife Tamara Makarova as Leo's wife. For this film he was awarded the Lenin Prize, one of the Soviet Union's top honors in 1984. Sergei Gerasimov was one of the most reputable film directors and screenwriters in the Soviet Union. The oldest film school in the world, VGIK, is named after Sergei Gerasimov. He died of a heart attack in 1985.
Source : www.seagullfilms.com
