Yuri Mamin

Who is Yuri Mamin?

Yuri Mamin is a celebrated Soviet and Russian film director, stage director, screenwriter, composer, author and television host, Honored Art Worker of the Russian Federation. His highly popular film "Window to Paris" may be truly called a people's film. His Buddhist-themed film "Don't Think About White Monkeys" is popular among the Russian noncomformist youth, including punks and rockers.

Yuri Mamin is the only person in Russia to have won the Chaplin's Golden Cane award. The award was presented by Charlie Chaplin's widow, Oona Chaplin, at the festival marking 100 years since the birth of the great comedian. The festival was held in the Swiss city of Vevey, where Chaplin was buried.

One special thing about Mamin's career - or, more accurately, about its almost non-existence in the totalitarian USSR, as well as in the corporate oligarchy - is the fact that he embodies in his art a vivid portrait of an inspired citizen in the fight for social justice.

Yuri Mamin began his directing career under the communist regime. He was never a communist and was always opposed to the oppressive power of the Communist Party. Because of this, he could not create his films until the beginning of Perestroika in 1985 and Mikhail Gorbachev's arrival to power.