Fyodor Bondarchuk

Fedor Bondarchuk in his childhood

Filming of Stalingrad by Yuri Ozerov, 1987

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. In 1985 after finishing school, Fyodor became a student of VGIK. In 1991 he graduated from the class of Yuri Ozerov as a film director.

Fedor Bondarchuk during the filming of Heat

His actor debut was in 1986 in the film Boris Godunov (1986) where he performed with his father.

In 1990 Fyodor 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.

Bondarchuk's breakthrough as an actor came with his dual role in the 1999 cult film 8 ½ $ by Grigori Konstantinopolsky, where he played both Fyodor and Stepan.[6] In 2001 Fyodor 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 Motion (2002). Since that he has produced over twenty film projects that were great box-office successes. Bondarchuk won the 2003 TEFI Award for "the Best Host of the Entertainment TV-Show".[1] In 2005 he directed his debut film The 9th Company, which was based on real events which happened during the Afghan war (1979–1989).[7] 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.[8] 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".[9]

Also Fyodor created 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 the shooting took 222 days. Production and distribution of Inhabited Island was realized by Fyodor 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.[10] At the same year, Fyodor 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".[11] As a result, their project Stalingrad was the first non-American film[12] filmed in IMAX format. It was released in October 2013.[13]

In 2012 Fyodor Bondarchuk produced the screen adaption of Sergey Minaev's book of the same name, Dukhless. Released in October 2012, it became the most successful Russian fiction film that year.[14] The sequel, Dukhless 2, was released in 2015.

Bondarchuk directed the science fiction film Attraction in 2017. The film was a box office success and earned $18 million.

In 2018 he produced another Minaev adaptation, Selfie, and the box-office hit musical film Ice which grossed $22 million against the budget of $2 million.

Fyodor Bondarchuk is a popular television host in Russia. His show about the world of cinema aired weekly on the STS TV channel in Russia. His guests in the studio included Oliver Stone, Darren Aronofsky, Michael Bay, Christoph Waltz, Daniel Craig, Til Schweiger etc.[20] In 2003 he received TEFI as the best TV host of entertainment program, in March 2004 Bondarchuk became a member of Russian Television Academy's fund.[2] At the same year Fyodor started to host the reality show You – a Supermodel.

In 2013 Fyodor have started his career of TV producer with two projects on the STS channel in Russia.

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.[21]

Fedor was married for more than 20 years to Svetlana Bondarchuk (née Rudskaya), main editor of HELLO! magazine (Russia). They have 2 children: son Sergey and daughter Varvara.[22] After divorcing from Svetlana, Fedor became romantically involved with actress Paulina Andreeva.[23]

• Fyodor Bondarchuk on IMDb
• Fedor Bondarchuk full Bio
• The official channel youtube