There is still debate if the cancer was caused by the locations used during the filming of Stalker. In 1986, he also published a book about cinema and art entitled Sculpting in Time. After years of creative conflict with state film authorities, Tarkovsky left the country in 1979 and made his final two films abroad Nostalghia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986) were produced in Italy and Sweden respectively.

A number of his films from this period are ranked among the best films ever made. Tarkovsky studied film at Moscow's VGIK under filmmaker Mikhail Romm, and subsequently directed his first five features in the Soviet Union: Ivan's Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), and Stalker (1979). Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films explore spiritual and metaphysical themes, and are noted for their slow pacing and long takes, dreamlike visual imagery, and preoccupation with nature and memory. Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (Russian: Андрей Арсеньевич Тарковский, IPA: 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet Russian film director, screenwriter, and film theorist.

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