Biography

Andrei Yurievich Kravchuk (Russian: Андре́й Ю́рьевич Кравчу́к; born 13 April 1962; Leningrad) is a Russian television and film director and screenwriter best known for his films The Italian (2005) and Admiral (2008). Kravchuk had almost completed his master's thesis in mathematics when he met filmmakers Aleksei German and Vladimir Vengerov and German found him a job as an assistant to director Yefim Gribov shooting We Are Going to America in 1992. By the end of filming, Kravchuk had decided to give up mathematics and become a filmmaker, and he was admitted to the St. Petersburg Institute of Cinema and Television. After graduating, he worked in Russian television, saying, "Television today in Russia is the most accessible path to professional filmmaking.