In a long interview with the acclaimed Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986), Donatella Baglivo avoids the subject of politics -- not a favorite topic with Tarkovsky, who had just defected from the Soviet Union at this time -- and asks him questions about his life and philosophy. World War II imbued his pre-teen years with the deprivation suffered by Russians in general. Tarkovsky's personal situation was all the worse because his father, a major Russian poet, abandoned his mother early in their marriage, leaving the future filmmaker to be raised by his mother alone. The great director's biographical comments, covering his years at film school and first artistic activities, are interspersed with clips from his movies. Ironically, Tarkovsky's father would outlive him, and the internationally acclaimed Russian director would be denied permission to visit his own wife and son in the Soviet Union during the few remaining years of his life.