Stolper Alexander Borisovich (1907-1979)

Stolper Alexander Borisovich (12 August 1907, Dvinsk — 12 January 1979, Moscow) — film director and screenwriter.

From 1923 to 1925, Boris Stolper studied at the film workshop of Lev Kuleshov, and from 1925 to 1927 at the acting faculty of the Proletkult studio. From 1927, he worked as a director and screenwriter at the Soyuzkino studio and in the сценарная мастерская of Mezhrabpomfilm. Together with Nikolai Ekk and R. Yanushkevich, he co-wrote the screenplay for the film “Road to Life (Putyovka v zhizn) ” (1931).

In 1938, he graduated from the directing department of VGIK (workshop of Sergei Eisenstein). From 1964, he taught at VGIK and later became a professor.

He made his debut with the short feature film “Simple Story (Prostaya istoriya)” (1930). Among his feature films are “Four Visits of Samuel Wolf” (1934), “The Story of a Real Man” (based on Boris Polevoy, 1948), “Far from Moscow” (based on Vasily Azhaev, 1950), and “Difficult Happiness” (based on Yuri Nagibin, 1958).

He also adapted works by Konstantin Simonov: “A Guy from Our City” (1942), “Wait for Me” (1943), “Days and Nights” (1944), “The Living and the Dead” (1963 — awarded the Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1964 and a diploma at the Acapulco International Film Festival in the same year), “Retribution” (1967), and “The Fourth” (1972). He authored the screenplays for many of his films.

He was awarded the title of People’s Artist of the USSR (1977), was a laureate of the Stalin Prize (1949, 1951) and the State Prize of the RSFSR (1966), and received three orders and several medals.