Andrei Rublev (film)

Andrei Rublev (Russian: Андрей Рублёв, Andrey Rublyov), also known as The Passion According to Andrei (Russian: Страсти по Андрею), is a 1966 Soviet film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky from a screenplay written by him and Andrei Konchalovsky. The film is loosely based on the life of Andrei Rublev, the great 15th-century Russian icon painter. The film features Anatoly Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Sergeyev, Nikolai Burlyayev and Tarkovsky's wife Irma Raush. Savva Yamshchikov, a famous Russian restorer and art historian, was a scientific consultant of the film.

Andrei Rublev is set against the background of 15th-century Russia. Although the film is only loosely based on the life of Andrei Rublev, it seeks to depict a realistic portrait of medieval Russia. Tarkovsky sought to create a film that shows the artist as "a world-historic figure" and "Christianity as an axiom of Russia’s historical identity" during a turbulent period of Russian history that ultimately resulted in the Tsardom of Russia. The film's themes include artistic freedom, religion, political ambiguity, autodidacticism, and the making of art under a repressive regime. Because of this, it was not released domestically in the officially atheist and authoritarian Soviet Union for years after it was completed, except for a single 1966 screening in Moscow. A version of the film was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI prize. In 1971, a censored version of the film was released in the Soviet Union. The film was further cut for commercial reasons upon its U.S. release through Columbia Pictures in 1973. As a result, several versions of the film exist.