Anna Pavlova

Anna Pavlova, also known as A Woman for All Time, is a 1983 biographical drama film depicting the life of the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova, written and directed by Emil Loteanu and starring Galina Belyayeva, James Fox and Sergey Shakurov. It depicts Pavlova's passion for art and her collaboration with the reformers of ballet including Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky and Sergei Diaghilev. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, famed British director Michael Powell served as a producer and featured American director Martin Scorsese in a cameo role. Plot The film opens in the cold Saint Petersburg with a scene where Anna as a young girl observes through a window young dancers practicing. Although she catches a cold, Anna decides that she does not merely want to be a dancer but that she wants to be one of the best. It is shown how classical master dancer/ballet teacher Marius Petipa helps Anna on to the path to glory and her rise in the imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Here she meets the young choreographer Mikhail Fokine with whom she rehearses The Dying Swan – the world-famous solo.