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The Killers

The first student film made by of one of the world’s most famous film directors. Andrei Tarkovsky made this adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway short story of the same name with two of his VGIKU classmates in 1956.

  • Russia
  • 1958, 19 min
  • Director: Andrey Tarkovsky, Aleksandr Gordon, Marika Beiku
  • Director of photography: Alfredo Álvarez, Aleksandr Rybin
  • Screenplay: Andrei Tarkovsky, Aleksandr Gordon, Marika Beiku
  • Cast: Yuli Fait, Aleksandr Gordon, Valentin Vinogradov, Andrei Tarkovsky


Andrey Tarkovsky, Aleksandr Gordon, Marika Beiku

Andrei Tarkovsky (b. 1932, USSR / 1986 France) studied oriental studies and geology before moving to film directing in 1956 at Moscow’s VGIK. He graduated in 1961 with the film Katok i skripta, based on the script of classmate Andrei Konchalovski, with whom he also wrote the script for his second film Andrei Rublev (1969). His feature debut Ivan’s Childhood (1962) won a Golden Lion in Venice. His other films include Solaris (1972), The Mirror (1975), Stalker (1979) and Nostalgia (1983), nominated for the Golden Palm in Cannes. Unrelenting problems with the Soviet authorities forced him to emigrate, where he made his last film, The Sacrifice (1985).