Russian poet, writer, screenwriter and director. Born on 6 September 1937 in Segueja, Soviet Karelia. Died in Peredelkino (near Moscow). Born into a military family: his father was an army engineer and his mother was the sister of General Perevertkin. Orphaned by his father at the age of 8, he was placed in the Suvorov Military School in Kiev, which he completed in 1955. From his teenage years onwards, he wrote poetry and stories.
From 1956 to 1961, he studied at VGIK, in the screenwriting department (class of Iossif Manevitch), where his classmates included (directing section) Andrei Tarkovsky and Andrei Konchalovsky.
His very first major screenplay, ‘The Gate of Ilyich’, was filmed by Marlen Khutsiev. However, the film was censored. It was reworked and released under the title ‘I Am 20’.
Meanwhile, he proposed a light-hearted and entertaining version of this work, the impulsive screenplay for ‘I'm Walking Around Moscow’, for which he also wrote the lyrics to the song, directed by Georgy Danelia and in which the future filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov made his acting debut at the age of 18. The film was a huge success.
Everything seemed to be going his way. Other screenplays followed, such as the remarkable ‘I Come from Childhood’ and ‘You and Me’, a sort of disillusioned assessment of the Thaw generation. The latter film won an award at the Venice Film Festival but was a box office flop.
He directed his own screenplay, Une longue vie heureuse (A Long Happy Life), but this attempt remained a one-off.
Chpalikov was no longer in tune with the times. His screenplays found no takers. With the end of the Thaw, he became disenchanted, which turned to despair when personal problems were added to the mix. He was unable to finish his novel.
On 1 November 1974, he committed suicide. He was just 37 years old.
Since 2009, his statue, flanked by those of Tarkovsky and Shukshin, has stood at the entrance to the VGIK, the three embodying Russian (and Soviet) cinema of the second half of the 20th century.
