Fyodor Bondarchuk

Early life

Fedor was born in Moscow in a family of actress Irina Skobtseva and internationally acclaimed film actor and an Academy Award-winning director Sergei Bondarchuk. He was no stranger to the world of cinema since his early childhood. In 1985 when the school was over Fedor became a student of Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). In 1991 he graduated from the class of Yuri Ozerov as a film director. His actor debut was in 1986 in the film Boris Godunov (1986) where he was acting with his father.

Breakthrough

In 1990 Fedor Bondarchuk started his career as the first Russian producer of music videos. In 1993 he won the Ovation award as the best producer of musical video. In 2001 Fedor played the role of Count Myshkin in Down House, loosely based on Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot. Fedor Bondarchuk started his career as a film producer in 2002, beginning with the film In action (2002). Since that he has produced over a dozen of film projects that had a great success and box office history. Bondarchuk won the 2003 TEFI Award for "the Best Host of the Entertainment TV-Show". In 2005 he directed his debut film The 9th Company, which is based on a real story during the Afghan war (1979–1989). The filming process took place in the Crimea, and lasted 5 months. The 9th Company eventually won 7 awards and was nominated eight times. It also broke the former box office record. The 9th Company became the first Russian film earning $25 million. In 2006 The 9th Company was submitted for Best Foreign Film on Academy Award, but it was ultimately not nominated.

"This film is about my generation, about the war and friendship. About men's love, feat, treason and loyalty" – Bondarchuk said, – "Probably the truth I was trying to show there will not be pleasant to our generals. But Afghan soldiers who were excited after viewing our film is the best proof for me. That is really important".

Also Fedor created a duology The Inhabited Island (2008). In 2006 Boris Strugatskiy gave rights to screen the film adaptation of the fantasy novel Prisoners of Power. The overall time of screening was 222 days. Production and distribution of Inhabited Island were realized by Fedor Bondarchuk's film company Art Pictures Studio. The film earned $30 million and took the third place of the box office of CIS area in 2009. In 2012 Bondarchuk received the Golden Eagle Award for the Best Actor in the film Two Days (2011) by Dunya Smirnova. At the same year, Fedor and film producer Alexander Rodnyansky officially announced the beginning of the cooperation with IMAX Filmed Entertainment (also known as IMAX Corporation). Greg Foster, the president of the company, said: "Fedor and Alexander showed me a 15 minute fragment of Stalingrad. And I'm very glad that we did a right choice in choosing a partners". As a result, their project Stalingrad was the first non-American film filmed in IMAX format. It was e released in October 2013.

In 2012 Fedor Bondarchuk produced the screen adaption of S. Minaev's book of the same name, Soulless. Released in October 2012, it became the most successful Russian fiction film that year.

In 2008 Feodor Bondarchuk, Konstantin Ernst and Ilya Bachurin found the company Glavkino. It's one of the largest film corporation in Russia.

Awards

Nominations

Private life

Fedor is more than 20 years married to Svetlana Bondarchuk (née Rudskaya), main editor of HELLO! magazine (Russia). They have 2 children: son Sergey and daughter Varvara.

In May, 2012 his son Sergey married to Tatiana Mamiashvili. The couple have two daughters: Margarita (2012) and Vera (2014).

Art Pictures Studio

Fedor is a founder of Art Pictures Group production company, which he founded in 1991 together with his friends Juhan Saul Gross and Stepan Mikhalkov and reorganized it in Art Pictures Studio in 2006 with his partner Dmitry Rudovskiy. The main area of the company is film and video production and distribution. Company is working with a variety of projects, ranging from music and advertising videos to feature films.

Musical and advertising videos made by Art Pictures received a lot of Russian and international awards. Company was working with Heinz, Philips, Sony, Zikr (Colgate total), Pepsi etc. In 2002 Art Pictures began a new business direction – film production.

Glavkino

In 2008 Fedor Bondarchuk together with Konstantin Ernst (Director General of the Russian Channel One) and Ilya Bachurin founded the large-scale project Glavkino. The project is to create contemporary, extensive and technically equipped cinema complex. The official opening is scheduled for year 2012. In 2011 Glavkino and New York Art Academy founded a Grant named after Sergei Bondarchuk.

Kinositi

In 2009 Fedor Bondarchuk with producer Sergey Selianov has initiated a project KINOSITI. The main mission of this company is to create network of multimedia educational cinema complexes throughout Russia.

Restaurant Business

Fedor Bondarchuk is an owner of three restaurants in Moscow (together with his friends and partners Stepan Mikhalkov, Arkadiy Novikov and Kirill Gusev). Also he opened two restaurants and confectionery in Ekaterinburg.

Television

Fedor Bondarchuk is a popular TV host in Russia. His show about cinema world has been released weekly on the STS TV channel in Russia. His guests in the studio in different times were Oliver Stone, Darren Aronofsky, Michael Bay, Christoph Waltz, Daniel Craig, Til Schweiger etc. In 2003 he received TEFI as the best TV host of entertainment programme, in March 2004 Bondarchuk became a member of Russian Television Academy's fund. At the same year Fedor started to host a new reality show about supermodel's life. In 2013 Fedor have started his career of TV producer with two projects on the STS TV channel in Russia.

Political activism

In March 2014 he signed a letter in support of the position of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin on Russia's military intervention in Ukraine.