Quick Facts
LeoBiography
Yuliya Ippolitovna Solntseva (Russian: Ю́лия Ипполи́товна Со́лнцева; 7 August 1901 – 28 October 1989) was a Soviet film director. As an actress, she is known for starring in the silent sci-fi classic Aelita (1924). She is the first female winner of the Best Director Award at Cannes film festival in the 20th century and the first woman to win a directing prize at any of the major European film festivals, for the film Chronicle of Flaming Years, a war drama about Russian resistance to Nazi occupation in 1941.
Biography
Solntseva directed 14 films between 1939 and 1979. She was married to director Aleksandr Dovzhenko and collaborated with him on his later films, including Michurin (1949), for which she was awarded a Stalin Prize.
For The Chronicle of Flaming Years she won the Best Director award at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival. She was named a People's Artist of the USSR when she turned 80.
Selected filmography
- Aelita (1924)
- The Cigarette Girl from Mosselprom (1924)
- Earth (1930)
- Ivan (1932)
- Shchors (1939)
- Ukraine in Flames (1943)
- Chronicle of Flaming Years (1961)
Honours and awards
- Stalin Prize, 2nd class (1949) - for the film Michurin (1948)
- All-Union Film Festival (1959) - A special honorary diploma film "Poem of the Sea"
- Cannes International Film Festival (1961) - Award for Best Director for the film "Chronicle of Flaming Years"
- International Film Festival in London (1962) - Honorary diploma for the film "Poem of the Sea"
- San Sebastián International Film Festival (1965) - Special Diploma of the Jury "for the artistic and technical merits" of the film "Enchanted Desna"
- People's Artist of the RSFSR (1964)
- People's Artist of the USSR (1981)
- Order of Lenin