Leonid Parfenov: biography, personal life, screenwriting career, films

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

Leonid Parfenov is a popular domestic journalist, director and TV presenter. He became famous while working on the NTV channel, where his famous project "The Other Day" is also released. Five times became the winner of the TEFI award. After his retirement from television, he began making documentaries on historical and cultural topics.

Journalist biography

Leonid Parfenov was born in Cherepovets in 1960. His father was a metallurgical engineer. Leonid has a brother, Vladimir, who owns a medical equipment company.

Leonid Parfenov started doing journalism when he was at school. At the age of 13, he even received a diploma as a young correspondent for the Pionerskaya Pravda publication. In 1977 he entered the Faculty of Journalism of the Leningrad University.

After graduating from high school, he worked for Pravda, Krasnaya Zvezda, Ogonyok, Moskovskie Novosti. He began his career on television at the Vologda Regionalchannel.

Central TV

Leonid Parfenov was noticed when he released an interview with music critic Artemy Troitsky on regional television, which was banned at the time.

In 1986, Parfyonov became a special correspondent for the youth editorial office on Central Television. Two years later, he switched to "Author's Television", and in 1989 his first documentary film was released. This is a joint work with Andrey Razbash called "Children of the XX Congress", dedicated to the generation of the sixties.

In 1990, Parfyonov became the author of the information and analytical program "The Other Day". In 1991, he was removed from the air for harsh remarks about the departure of Shevardnadze from the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Parfyonov came to NTV in 1993, where he again decided to launch the "The Other Day" project. Now it is published in the format of the final weekly program.

The other day

In 1997, Leonid Parfenov launched his project again. "The other day. Our era. 1961-91" is a historical program, each episode of which is dedicated to the main events in the Soviet Union and the world, starting from 1961.

At the same time, Parfyonov becomes one of the company's leaders, in particular, he is responsible for entertainment broadcasting. It is from his submission that the scandalous program "About This" with Elena Khanga is launched on NTV. This is the first everRussian television talk show about sex.

Leonid Parfyonov's project "The Other Day" is becoming so popular that over time it presents a description of the main events of the year up to 2003. Soon the idea to start publishing illustrated printed publications appeared. Books by Leonid Parfenov called "The other day. Our era" have been published since 2009.

From 2001 to 2004, he hosted the information and analytical program "The Other Day" on NTV, which becomes a kind of outcome of the past week. On June 1, 2004, Parfenov was fired, according to the official version, because of a conflict with the leadership, in fact, because of a sharp report in "Namedni" about the situation in Chechnya.

Private life

In 1987 Parfenov married Elena Chekalova, a graduate of Moscow State University. She taught literature and Russian at a geological exploration institute for foreign students, after which she worked in the newspapers Moskovskiye Novosti and Sovetskaya Kultura. In 2009-2013 hosted the program "Happiness exists!" on Channel One, is still writing a food column for the Kommersant newspaper.

In 1988 their son Ivan was born. He received his secondary education in England and Germany. Higher - at the University of Economics in Milan. In February 2018, he gave Parfenov his grandson Mikhail.

In 1993, the couple had a daughter, Maria, who graduated from the British Council School in Italy and the University of Restaurant and Hospitality.

Documentaries

Leonid Parfyonov has been actively filming documentaries since the beginning of the 90s. In particular, it was a series of paintings "Portrait against the background", dedicated to contemporary political and then cultural figures. Among those who became the heroes of the "Portrait in the background" are Yegor Gaidar, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Igor Kirillov, Alla Pugacheva, Muslim Magomayev, Boris Grebenshchinkov, Bogdan Titomir.

In the late 90s, Parfyonov became the director and screenwriter of several documentaries of various directions at once: "All Zhvanetsky", "The Life of Solzhenitsyn", "The Age of Nabokov", "Recent History. Meeting Place. 20 Years Later", dedicated to Stanislav Govorukhin's crime drama "The meeting place cannot be changed".

Russian Empire

From 2000 to 2003, Parfenov produces a documentary series in which he presents his own view of the entire history of our state from 1697 to 1917. The program cycle is called "Russian Empire". Leonid Parfyonov made 16 issues in total, each of which is dedicated to the reign of one of the monarchs, from Peter I to Nicholas II.

Colossal work has been done. The film crew visited 65 cities, the longest stay was in Germany, where several Russian queens were from.

As in other projects of Parfenov, computer graphics and special effects, virtual geographical maps are actively used.

It is known thatit was planned to release a continuation of this cycle called "Soviet Empire", but this project was never implemented due to changes in the editorial policy of the NTV channel, as well as the subsequent dismissal of Parfenov himself. At the same time, several stories for the future series of programs have even been filmed.

Projects of recent years

After his dismissal from the NTV channel, Parfyonov specializes in creating documentaries that he makes for various channels.

So, the paintings "Death Flight" about Alexander Bashlachev, "Lyusya" for the anniversary of Lyudmila Gurchenko, "War in Crimea - everything is in smoke" for the 150th anniversary of the Crimean War, "Private Rubens for a hundred million" about the fate of the painting by the master "Tarquinius and Lucretia", "And personally Leonid Ilyich" for the 100th anniversary of Brezhnev, "Eternal Oleg" for the anniversary of Efremov, "Contemporary" for the 75th anniversary of Galina Volchek.

In 2009, the premiere of the film "Bird-Gogol", dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Gogol, was held on the central channel.

In 2010, Leonid Parfenov releases the television project "The Ridge of Russia" about the history of the Urals, with the help of the well-known modern writer Alexei Ivanov in collecting materials for the film. In the same year, the film "Zworykin-Muromets" was released about the creator of modern television Vladimir Zworykin.

Among his latest work is the author's documentary "The Color of the Nation", dedicated to the pioneer of color photography inRussia Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky. It is interesting that the picture is built mainly not on a story about the biography of the photographer and inventor, but on a comparison of objects in his photographs, which he took at the beginning of the 20th century, with their current state. The film also contains an interview with the grandchildren of Prokudin-Gorsky, specialists from the US Library of Congress, where his negatives are now kept.

To date, Parfenov's latest work is the documentary "Russian Jews".