Talgat Nigmatulin

Talgat Nigmatulin was born on 5 March 1949. Most sources give Kyzyl-Kiya in the Osh Region of the Kirghiz SSR as his birthplace; in his few interviews he named Tashkent. He studied at VGIK in the course of Sergei Gerasimov and Tamara Makarova.

From 1971 he worked at the Uzbekfilm studio in Tashkent. His early roles include the shepherd Ismail in Ali Khamraev's “The Seventh Bullet” (1972). In 1978 he completed the Higher Courses for Screenwriters and Directors at the USSR State Committee for Cinematography.

His best-known role is Saleh in Boris Durov's “Pirates of the 20th Century” (1979), which led Soviet box office in 1980 and drew 87.6 million viewers in its first year. He later appeared in “The Right to Shoot” (1981), “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn” (1981, as Injun Joe), Bolotbek Shamshiev's “The Wolf Pit” (1983) and “Alone and Unarmed” (1984). In 1984 he made his directing debut with the ten-minute short “Echo”.

Nigmatulin died in Vilnius on 11 February 1985, aged 35; the case over his death was heard by the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR. His ashes are buried at the Chilanzar Ota cemetery in Tashkent. In 2000 a street in Kyzyl-Kiya was named after him.