Aleksandr Askoldov

Aleksandr Askoldov (1932- 2018) was born in Moscow. A great talent, Commissar (1967) was his first and last film in the Soviet Union. Refusing to change the depiction of the Jewish family featured in his film, the film was ‘destroyed’ and he left Russia. In the 1980s, with pressure from luminaries including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Commissar was finally released to the acclaim it deserved. Askoldov believed in art’s capacity to change the world, even after the tragic ways his truth had affected him.