Motion Picture Director, Screenwriter. One of the first important talents to emerge from the post-Stalinist "thaw" period of Soviet Cinema. His fame rests on "Ballad of a Soldier" (1959), a simple, haunting allegory of a young Russian who falls in love while on leave during World War II. The first Soviet film entered into a US film festival, it took top honors in San Francisco in 1960 and Chukhrai shared a 1962 Academy Award nomination for its original screenplay. Grigori Naumovich Chukhrai was born in Melitopol, Ukraine. He spent the war years as a Red Army paratrooper and infantry officer, was wounded five times and decorated for valor; these experiences would set the emotional tone and provide thematic material for much of his work. Following his discharge he studied directing under Mikhail Romm and Sergei Yutkevich at the Moscow Cinema Institute (VGIK), graduating in 1953. His solo feature debut, "The Forty-First" (1956), was a major step towards naturalism within his country's propaganda-dominated movie industry. It won the Jury Prize at Cannes. Chukhrai's boldest film, "Clear Skies" (1961), attacked the terrors of Stalin's regime and came back to haunt him after hardline Stalinist Leonid Brezhnev came to power later in the decade. Subsequently his output grew sparse and undistinguished, and he devoted himself mainly to teaching at the VGIK. Among his other credits are "There Was an Old Couple" (1965), "People!" (1966), "Memory" (1971), "Quagmire" (1978), "Life Is Beautiful" (1979), and "I'll Teach You to Dream" (1984). He was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1960. In 1994 Chukhrai received a Nika Award, Russia's equivalent of the Oscar, for lifetime achievement.