Sergey Lavrentiev was born in 1954. Began his career as a theater actor in 1970’s. After graduation prestigious Russian State Film Institute VGIK, he joined Gosfilmofond, one of the world biggest film archives. During perestroika he went on to become a leading film critic known as one of the founders of “new wave” of Soviet film criticism. Sergey has written about Central and Eastern European cinema for numerous publications including Sovietsky Ekran, Iskusstvo kino, Kultura… After his article “Never ending story” (April 1987) Soviet censorship stopped to cut foreign films in national distribution. At that time he played the part of the great film genius Eisenstain in the film Prishvin’s paper eyes (1989). Also appeared in avantgarde film Concert for the Rat (1995). In 1990’s Lavrentiev was an ancorman for number of television programs named “Kinomarathon” and devoted to the Centenary of cinema. Since 1999 - program director of Sochi IFF, IFF “Faces of Love”, Children Film Festival “Kinotavrik” in Sochi, IFF “Zerkalo” in Ivanovo, IFF in Orenburg IFF in Cheboxary. Head of selection committee for Kazan IFF, selector for “Bright Angel” IFF in Moscow, Russian adviser for Busan IFF. From 2002 till 2012 member of Russian Oscar committee. Member of two National film academies. Adviser for Mosfilm International department. Wrote books “Clint Eastwood. Furious and Handsome” (2001), “Western under the red banner” (2009), “About Schmidt. From Russia with Love” (2015), “Mosfilm directors” (2022). Worked as a Film history teacher in Moscow TV and Radio institute till 2018.
