Andrei Stapran

The son of an architect and an employee of Gorky Films, after working with Aleksandr Rou as an actor on two pictures, he decided to become a director. According to his interview on the DVD of The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors, he made 68 films for Gorky Studios, and 12 films after the August revolution. He then became artistic director of Echo Films. He made a film called Human Conscience: Chernobyl and displayed a letter from Erik Jensen, Deputy UN Coordinator for Chernobyl, praising the film. Other films made by Echo include The Caribbean Crisis, I Went Out of Obedience with Bulgarian writer Sveta Alkseevich, The Quick Sands of Afghanistan, The Flames of the Afghan War (Flamya Afgana). He was disappointed with the reception of the latter film. He feels his mission is to prevent World War III by crating awareness of historical turning points through his films.