Vladimir Shevchenko(1929-1987)

Vladimir Nikitivich Shevchenko, born in Balta, Ukraine, was an Ukrainian/Soviet director, writer and filmmaker. He was a student at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, former VGIK, in Moscow, Russia. Shevchenko graduated as a film director in 1967. He soon became a prestigious and renowned documentary filmmaker. Shevchenko received a number of awards. Among them the Tara Shevchenko State Prize for his three part epic "Soviet Ukraine: Years of Struggle and Victories" (1974-77). Vladimir Shevchenko is best known for his remarkable documentary of the nuclear meltdown and disaster - "Chernobyl - Chronicle of Difficult Weeks" (1986). As first film team on location, together with two other cameramen he filmed the immediate result of the disaster at the nuclear plant, block 4. In all Shevchenko made 14 documentaries and 2 feature films. Vladimir Shevchenko died March 30, 1987, in Kiev, Ukraine, from the effects of exposure to radioactivity that he incurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant.