A prominent graduate of Moscow's State Institute for Cinematography in 1963, Soviet film visionary Larisa Shepitko spent the proceeding decades crafting stark, intimate portraits of complex characters. This entry in the Criterion Collection's Eclipse Series presents two of Shepitko's most-acclaimed works: WINGS, the sad and delicate story of a female fighter pilot in the years after the war, and THE ASCENT, a film that follows two World War II soldiers cut off from their platoon in the depths of winter.

DVD Features:

2-Disc Set
Keep Case
Full Frame - 1.33
Audio:
Dolby Digital 1.0 - Russian
Subtitles - English - Optional
FEATURES:
1. WINGS
2. THE ASCENT

Distributor Notes: The career of Larisa Shepitko, an icon of sixties and seventies Soviet cinema, was tragically cut short when she was killed in a car crash at age thirty-nine, just as she was emerging on the international scene. The body of work she left behind, though small, is masterful, and her genius for visually evoking characters' interior worlds is never more striking than in her two greatest works: Wings, an intimate yet exhilarating portrait of a female fighter pilot turned provincial headmistress, and The Ascent, a gripping, tragic World War II parable of betrayal and martyrdom. A true artist, who had deftly used the Soviet film industry to make statements both personal and universal, Shepitko remains one of the greatest unsung filmmakers of all time.

Source: Image Entertainment Inc.

Boris Plotnikov: 
Maya Bulgakova: 

Larisa Shepitko: