Her mother worked as a senior cashier at the Muir and Maryliz Trading House (now TsUM).

[5] After graduating from the institute in 1922, she received an invitation to the Moscow Kamerny Theatre under the direction of Alexander Tairov, where her career began, but soon left the theater to work in cinema.

“In Yakov Protazanov’s Aelita, Solntsev’s debutante from the troupe of the Tairov Kamerny Theater smashed the futuristic geometry of Mars with uneven breathing towards a stray engineer from Earth”.

She collaborated with husband Aleksandr Dovzhenko on his later films, including Michurin (1949), for which she was awarded a Stalin Prize.

With her cinematic work consisting of previously written material by her late husband, her own creativity had been overlooked with those believing her role in the production of The Ukrainian Trilogy was merely getting the film to the screen.

Upon further consideration, it is now understood that Solntseva had incorporated her own artistic style with her own experimental sound design and images.

[10] For The Chronicle of Flaming Years she won the Best Director award at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival.