On March 19, 2019, director and screenwriter Marlen Khutsiev, aged 93, died at a Moscow hospital. His demise is a great loss for the Russian culture. This was emphasized by the State Duma deputy, stage and film actress Elena Drapeko, when expressing condolences to the relatives and friends of Marlen Khutsiev.

      Marlen Khutsiev is a universally recognized classic of the Russian cinema. He directed such popular films as Spring in Zarechnaya Street (1956), Two Fyodors (1958), Zastava Iliycha (1964), July Rain (1966) and others. Zastava Ilyicha (known in English alternately as Ilyich's Gate or Lenin's Guard) won the Special Jury Award of the Venice International Film Festival and the Gold Plate at the International Rome Film Festival. In 1986, Marlen Khutsiev received the title of the People's Artist of the USSR.

      This year his new feature film Nevechernyaya (No-Vespertine) designed as a dialogue between two great Russian writers Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy was expected to be released.

      “Marlen Khutsiev is an epoch. Marlen Khutsiev is a moral reference point for several generations of filmmakers. He has never filmed what he did not want to film. He has never been a conformist. He has always been a very principled and a very honest artist,” – actress Elena Drapeko, a member of the RF Culture Committee, pointed out. 

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