Klimov is best known for his final film, Come and See (Иди и смотри), which follows a teenage boy in German-occupied Byelorussia during World War Two and which received universal acclaim.
[1][2][3] Nevertheless, his brother German Klimov stated that his name comes from Elam Harnish — a character of the Burning Daylight novel by Jack London, since their mother was a fan of his.
[4] During the Battle of Stalingrad, he, his mother and his baby brother were evacuated from their home and crossed the Volga on a makeshift raft.
[2] Klimov's first feature film, 1964's Welcome, or No Trespassing (known in the United Kingdom as No Holiday for Inochkin) was a satire on Soviet bureaucracy in the guise of a children's summer camp adventure story.
Speaking of how the film drew on his own childhood experience of the war, Klimov said, "As a young boy, I had been in hell... Had I included everything I knew and shown the whole truth, even I could not have watched it.
[7][8] Klimov's leadership saw the belated release of many of the previously banned films and the reinstatement of several directors who had fallen out of political favor.
Klimov was still frustrated by the obstacles that still remained in his way and gave up his post in 1988 to Andrei Smirnov, saying that he wanted to make films again.
[3] He enrolled at the state film school, the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, where he studied under acclaimed director Efim Dzigan.