He lives and works in Moscow. Vadim belongs to Tatar nationality. He studied in Almaty Technical School of Railway Transport in 1959 — 1961, in Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1961 — 1964, and graduated from Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering in 1967. In 1967 — 1970 he worked at the Moscow Electrovacuum Plant.

 

In 1970 Vadim entered the Film Director's Faculty of the VGIK (the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography), where he studied in Mikhail Romm's class, and after his death continued his training under Lev Kulidzhanov. Abdrashitov's first student work, the mute six-minute documentary etude The Reporting from Asphalt was highly appreciated by Mikhail Romm. In 1974 Vadim successfully defended his thesis work — a satirical comedy based on Grigory Gorin's story Stop Potapov!

 

Subsequently Vadim was invited to work at the Mosfilm Studio by Yuli Raizman, who was the head of the creative association Companion. Here Vadim met Aleksandr Mindadze, with whom he later co-created 11 movies.

 

Abdrashitov's works are distinguished by a reserved, internally intense cinema language. His films always concentrate on acute moral problems.