Alexei German, 74, a Russian film director best known for his works chronicling the Stalinist era in the Soviet Union, died in Moscow on Thursday.
His son, Alexei German Jr., said in a blog post Thursday that the filmmaker died of heart failure at a hospital in St. Petersburg.
Mr. German came to prominence internationally for his 1983 production My Friend Ivan Lapshin, about a police investigator battling a criminal gang. Authorities blocked the film's release for two years because of its realistic depiction of Soviet life in the wake of the Stalinist terror of the late 1930s.
