Born in 1951 in the city of Podorvikha, Russia. His work, even as a student, was unacceptable to Russian bureaucracy, and he was accused of formalism and of assuming "anti-Soviet views". His first feature, "The Lonely Human Voice" (1978, 26th Mostra) was refused as a graduating project by the VGIK, the Russian Cinema Institute. Sokurov`s films were shown in Brazil since 1997, at the 21st Mostra, with "Mother and Son". He had a retrospective of 33 of his films at the 26th Mostra, in 2002, when the first book in Portuguese about his work, Aleksandr Sokúrov, by publishing house Cosac Naify, was also released. Among his most important films are "Dolce" (1999, 24th Mostra), "Elegy of a Voyage" (2001, 25th Mostra), "The Russian Arc" (2002, 26th Mostra), "Father and Son" (2003, 27th Mostra), and "Alexandra" (2007, 32nd Mostra), in addition to the films that complete the Power Tetralogy: "Moloch" (1999, 23rd Mostra) about Hitler, "Taurus", about Lenin (2001, 26th Mostra), and "The Sun", about the Japanese emperor Hirohito (2005, 30th Mostra).