AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREI TARKOVSKY CONDUCTED BY PATRICK BUREAU He is 30 years old. Born on the banks of the Volga, but his family comes from Moscow. A family of poets and intellectuals, concerned with music and painting. He can be placed within what we call the "Soviet New Wave". Patrick BUREAU: Mr. Tarkovsky, how did your interest in cinema begin? Andrei TARKOVSKY: After studying the problems facing Eastern civilization for a while, I spent two years conducting geological research in Siberia, and then returned to Moscow. There I enrolled at the State Institute of Cinematography, where my professor was the director Mikhail Romm. I completed my studies in 1961. I had already directed two short films, one of them being Katok i skripka ("The Steamroller and the Violin"). It was an initiation into eclecticism before I started working at Mosfilm Studios and directed the new film Ivanovo