Eduard Khachaturov

Eduard Iosifovich Khachaturov was born on 27 March 1936 in Tashkent and grew up in the old part of the city, in the Takhtapul mahalla. He lost both parents in early childhood and was raised by his elder brothers and sister, who chose artistic careers; one of them was the future director Albert Khachaturov.

After a short time at the Uzbekfilm studio, including work on the set of “Vtoroe tsvetenie” (“The Second Blooming”), he went to Moscow and entered the directing department of VGIK, in the workshop of Sergei Gerasimov and Tamara Makarova. His diploma work was “The Desert”, a feature from his own screenplay made at Turkmenfilm, with Artyk Jalilov in the lead.

Back in Tashkent he began at the Uzkinokhronika newsreel studio and then returned to Uzbekfilm, where he worked alongside Kamil Yarmatov, Yuldash Agzamov and Shukhrat Abbasov on films such as “The Death of the Black Consul”, “Fiery Paths” and “Abu Rayhon Beruniy”.

He went on to direct feature and television films of his own, some of them multi-part: “The Border Runs Here” (1971), “That Nice Guy” (1972), “First Passengers”, about the builders of the Tashkent metro, which premiered in the days the first line opened, “Every Third”, and “Called to the Ring”, about an Uzbek boxer, with world champion Rufat Riskiev in the lead. His best-known film is the musical comedy “I'll Give You a City” (“Toʻylar muborak”, 1978), written by Oʻtkir Hoshimov and Boris Saakov and often named among the best Uzbek films. In 1987 came the detective film “Before the Big Road to War”, based on a novella by O. Sidelnikov.

In his later years Khachaturov made documentary shorts at Uzkinokhronika on historical and contemporary subjects, around fifty in all. He was also remembered for singing a duet from “Awaara” with the Indian actor Raj Kapoor at the Tashkent International Film Festival.

Eduard Khachaturov died in Tashkent on 17 July 2025, in his ninetieth year; his death was announced by the Union of Cinematographers of Uzbekistan.