History of the Film Festival Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the greatest film directors of 20-th century, a genius of the world cinema, a founder of his own cinema language, a philosopher, a cosmic scale person. His creativity still remains mystic and secret one. It is unique because of its spirituality. The most characteristic features of the Master’s work are vivid plastic, exceptional melodiousness, emotional and intellectual energy of all the films, full of literary and cultural associations. All this attracts new generations of spectators to the Master’s work. Tarkovsky’s name ranks with the names of such great film directors as Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman who admired films of their Russian colleague.

It is a pleasure to realize that Andrei Arsenievich is not only our compatriot, but also our fellow-countryman. He was born in a village Zavrazh’e of the Yurievets district of the Ivanovo region and spent his childhood in Yurievets. - In April, 1990 in Yurievets, which is his homeland, on his birthday, for the first time the Days in memory of Andrei Tarkovsky took place. Tarkovsky Society of the Union of cinematographers of the USSR and Academy of Sciences of the USSR and A.Tarkovsky Fund were the organizers of the event. - In 1996 – in commemoration of 10th anniversary of Tarkovsky’s death in a city of his childhood – ancient Yurievets –Tarkovsky House was opened. It is the first and the only in Russia. - In 2002 under the initiative of Committee on culture and art of the Ivanovo region and regional state institution “Ivkinoservise” the first regional festival “Days in memory of A.Tarkovsky on Ivanovo land”, devoted to the 70th anniversary of the film director, took place. In April during the days of the festival Yurievets becomes the center of cultural pilgrimage of cinematographers, friends, those who worked with Andrei Tarkovsky, and just admirers of his creative work, to the homeland of the great film director.

This year the Days in memory of A.Tarkovsky will be held for the 16th time already. At different times many famous people visited Yurievets. Such people as the actor Yuri Nazarov, the director and actor Nikolai Burlyaev, actresses Margarita Terekhova and Alla Demidova, Natalia Bondarchuk, Elena Sanaeva are among them. A large group of film historians also visited Yurievets: Neya Zorkaya and Leonid Kozlov; director of the film “Andrei Roublev” Tamara Ogorodnikova; a director, a fellow student and a friend Alexander Gordon; a poet and a journalist Yuri Kublanovsky and some others. A frequent visitor of the Days in Yurievets is a sister of the director Marina Arsenievna Tarkovskaya, who had rendered assistance in organizing Tarkovsky House. Just here, in Yurievets, in Tarkovsky House, Marina Arsenievna presented two of her books: “Splinters of a mirror” and the collection “About Tarkovsky”. In 2007 to the 75th of Andrei Tarkovsky the Government of the Ivanovo region of the Russian Federation under support of Administration of the President of the Russian Federation and the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of culture of the Russian Federation, the Government of Moscow, the Union of cinematographers of Russia has founded the International film festival “Zerkalo” named after Andrei Tarkovsky.