Ivan's Childhood
In 1961, while working on his first feature film "Ivan's Childhood", Tarkovsky made a proposal to Mosfilm for a film on the life of Russia's greatest icon painter, Andrei Rublev. The contract was signed in 1962 and the first treatment was approved in December 1963. Tarkovsky and his co-screenwriter Andrei Konchalovsky worked for more than two years on the script, studying medieval writings and chronicles and books on medieval history and art. In April 1964 the script was approved and Tarkovsky began working on the film. At the same time the script was published in the influential film magazine "Iskusstvo Kino", and was widely discussed among historians, film critics and ordinary readers. The discussion on "Andrei Rublev" centered on the sociopolitical and historical, and not the artistic aspects of the film.