Uchkun Nazarov

Uchkun Igamberdiyevich Nazarov was born on 27 December 1934 in Tashkent. In 1959 he graduated from the directing faculty of the Ostrovsky Tashkent Theatre and Art Institute. He worked as a director at the Hamza Drama Theatre in Kokand and then, for the rest of his career, at the Uzbekfilm studio.

He came to literature before cinema: his first story, “People”, appeared in 1961 in the newspaper Literature and Art of Uzbekistan, and a collection of the same name followed a year later. In 1963 he took part in the Fourth All-Union Conference of Young Writers. He wrote in both Uzbek and Russian, and his stories were published in the journal Druzhba narodov; his books include the collections “Pride”, “Jurat” and “Fidelity” and the novel “The Year of the Scorpion”.

As a film director he made around ten films between 1960 and 1990, writing or co-writing the script for most of them. His debut was “Life Passed at Night” (“Surayyo”, 1964), followed by “Boy and Girl” (1968), “Impulse” (1970), “Caravan” (1973), “The Fiery Shore” (1975), “Downpour” (1979), “The Grove of Memory” (1981) and “The Bride’s Send-Off” (1983). He also made a documentary about the writer Abdulla Qahhor.

His best-known work is the three-part television film “It Happened in Kokand” (1977), based on a book by Nikolai Nikitin. It earned him a special diploma at the All-Union Television Film Festival in Leningrad (1977) and the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR (1979). For “The Fiery Shore” he received the Uzbekistan Leninist Komsomol Prize (1976).

Nazarov was an Honoured Artist of the Uzbek SSR (a title conferred in the late 1960s), held the Order of the Badge of Honour (1986), and was a member of the USSR Union of Writers and the USSR Union of Cinematographers. In 1990 he co-directed “The Battle of Three Kings”.

Uchkun Nazarov died in Tashkent in June 2016 and was buried at the Minor cemetery.