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Despite these supposedly stringent controls, however, the system was hampered by one major factor: during the mid to late 1950s, the Soviet film industry began expanding at an almost exponential rate, epitomised by the international success of Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes are Flying, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1957.
This resurgence owed a lot to the 20th Party Congress in 1956, at which Khrushchev denounced Stalinism, thereby precipitating the ‘Thaw’ that initiated the most liberal cultural climate in the Soviet Union for 30 years. The film industry thrived as a result. In 1955, 65 features were produced; by the early 1960s, this had risen to over 100 per year. Cinemas likewise doubled in number, from 59,000 in 1955 to 118,000 in 1965. Aside from Kalatozov, other directors rose to prominence
between the late fifties and mid sixties, such as Elem Klimov, Larissa Shepitko and Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, and the only two Soviet directors Tarkovsky professed to admire, Otar Iosseliani and Sergei Parajanov.
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