Igor Maslennikov

Igor Fyodorovich Maslennikov (Russian: Игорь Фёдорович Масленников; 26 October 1931 – 17 September 2022; Nizhny Novgorod) was a Soviet and Russian film director. Maslennikov was born in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1954 he completed his education in the department of journalism of the Leningrad University and worked as an editor, script writer, and cameraman on Leningrad television. In 1965 he entered the Higher Directors' Courses of Lenfilm (Grigori Kozintsev's workshop), at end of which he became the director of this motion picture studio. In the cinema, Maslennikov made his debut at the end of the 1960s with a film about a senior pupil: the Personal Life of Kuzyaev Valentin. He directed children's films (Tomorrow and 3 April), movies about sports (Racers), historical costume-dramas (Yaroslavna, the Queen of France). He worked on the joint Soviet-Norwegian picture Under a Stone Sky, which narrates the sad events which occurred in one of the Norwegian towns during the Nazi occupation. He filmed Vera Panova's autobiographical Sentimental novel. Enormous success came to Maslennikov when he directed a cycle of films about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. The successful selection of the actors, among whom there were Vasily Livanov, Vitaly Solomin, Boryslav Brondukov, Rina Zelyonaya, Nikita Mikhalkov and the outstanding talent of the director ensured audience's love of the film. In 1985 Maslennikov presented the melodrama Winter Cherry. The movie became one of the greatest blockbuste…