Foam Magazine #21 / MERGE / Andrey Tarkovsky

Andrey Tarkovsky was born in the village of Zavrazhie near the Volga in Russia in 1932. He studied Arabic at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Languages between 1951 and 1954 before enrolling in the famous VGIK Moscow film school in 1959. Besides being a filmmaker he was a writer, film editor, film theorist and an opera director. He became one of the most influential film directors of the twentieth century. His films include Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), The Mirror (1975) and Stalker (1979). He directed his first five movies in the Soviet Union but left Russia permanently in the early 1980s. His films are characterized by a lack of conventional narrative, long takes and metaphysical themes.

Tarkovsky’s film Nostalghia (1983) was made in Italy and reflects his constant longing for his family and homeland. He took hundreds of Polaroids in collecting material, scenes and moods for his film. A viewer immediately recognizes the sublime light and dreamy atmosphere that distinguish his visual language and his film making.

In 2008 White Space Gallery, in association with the Tarkovsky Foundation, published the previously unseen Polaroids in the book Bright, Bright Day, edited by the photographer Stephen Gill, who also edited this portfolio.