The son of two poets (his father wrote the Russian national anthem), Konchalovsky originally studied as a concert pianist before moving on to filmmaking, writing scripts for acclaimed director Andrei Tarkovsky. His short thesis film, "The Boy and the Pigeon", won first prize in its category at the 1962 Venice Film Festival and his feature debut, "The First Teacher" (1965), established his reputation for finely-observed, well-acted character studies. "Asya's Happiness" (1967) was suppressed upon completion but released to critical acclaim in 1988.
In 1979 Konchalovsky's three-and-a-half-hour "Siberiade" was awarded the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, earning him international attention and leading--partly due to the efforts of actor Jon Voight--to his move to the USA in 1980. Apart from the 1985 Voight-starrer "Runaway Train", however, Konchalovsky's American feature output has been disappointing. He made motion picture history with "Inner Circle" (1991), the first film to shoot scenes inside the Kremlin, KGB headquarters and the Soviet army's war college. For his first small screen effort, an adaptation of Homer's "The Odyssey" (NBC, 1997), Konchalovsky corralled an impressive cast, including Armand Assante, Greta Scacchi, Bernadette Peters and Vanessa Williams, and earned respectable reviews for his efforts.