Konstantin Lopushansky

Konstantin Lopushansky (b. 1947) is a Russian director, film theorist, and author. Born in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, he was raised in Kazan, where he trained as a violinist before receiving a Ph.D. in art history. After graduating from film school in 1979, Lopushansky worked as an assistant to Andrei Tarkovsky on his classic Stalker. From 1980 onwards, Lopushansky worked at St Petersburg’s Lenfilm studio. He is best known for a series of post-apocalyptic sci-fi films: Dead Man’s Letters (1986), his feature debut, which screened at Cannes in 1987; A Visitor to a Museum (1989); Russian Symphony (1994), which won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlin Film Festival; and Ugly Swans (2006), an adaptation of the Strugatsky Brothers. His other films include The Role (2013) and Through the Black Glass (2019). In February 2022, Lopushansky signed an open letter condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.