In 1979
Andrei Tarkovsky began production of his film The First Day (Russian: Pervyj Dyen), based on a script by
Andrey Konchalovskiy, who had last worked with him on
Andrei Rublev. The film was set in 18th-century Russia during the reign of Peter the Great and starred
Natalya Bondarchuk and
Anatoliy Papanov. To get the project approved by the production company 'Goskino [ru]', Tarkovsky submitted a script that was different from the original script, omitting several scenes that were critical of the official atheism in the Soviet Union. After shooting roughly half of the film the project was stopped by Goskino after it became apparent that the film differed from the script submitted to the censors. Tarkovsky was reportedly infuriated by this interruption and destroyed most of the film. Tarkovsky vowed to never make another film in the Soviet Union, and all his subsequent work was in Western Europe where he settled.