Vsevolod Aravin

Vsevolod Aravin was born and grew up in a family of musicians in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. After appearing in a commercial at the age of 4, he made up his mind to become a film director. Following the family tradition, he studied music, but was determinedly getting ready for a career in directing. The crisis of the 1990s didn't let Vsevolod fulfil his dream of making fiction films, so he worked in documentary and TV for a quite long period, up to 2007. Nowadays he makes feature films and TV-series in Moscow. Working with leading Russian actors, he films in various genres, but mostly action and detective. He often acts as well. He started making his first films with an 8-mm camera in Tien Shan Mountains at the age of 12-14. When he was 18 he started filming with a 16-mm camera. Later, in 1989, having dropped out of Novosibirsk Conservatory, he finally started studying directing at the Theatre Arts Academy (called Leningrad State Institute of Music and Cinematography at that time). Vsevolod has tried lots of sports (mountaineering, rock climbing, scuba diving, freediving, parachute jumping, yoga, powerlifting) and martial arts (boxing, judo, kudo, ju-jitsu). Though for the past 10 years aikido has been the main sport for him (black belt, second dan).