Film Star Missing After Avalanche

Sergei Bodrov Jr. first seized the attention of the world's film fans in "Prisoner of the Caucasus," and those mountains may have brought him doom as well as fame. The actor, seen by many as a prime hope for post-Soviet Russia's struggling movie industry, is missing after an avalanche roared through the site where he was working on his latest movie.

Officials on Tuesday held out little hope that more survivors would be found from the devastation wreaked when some 20 million tons of ice broke off a glacier and roared down a mountainside. Newspaper reports of the disaster featured large photos of the 30-year-old actor-director, whose roles combining eros, honor and bewilderment seemed to synopsize Russia's ambitions and troubles.

The avalanche in North Ossetia, a region of towering peaks high in the Caucasus Mountains, left as many as 150 people dead. Sergei Shoigu, Russia's minister of emergency situations, arrived in the town, about 940 miles southeast of Moscow, for a firsthand look. Local officials have declared Thursday a day of mourning.

In addition to recovering bodies, workers were working to restore the road from the town of Gizel to the village of Kaban, which has been left totally isolated as a result of Friday's avalanche. About 3,000 people there are relying on helicopter drops of food and there is no drinking water.

Some 300 rescue workers were in the area, but there was no news early Tuesday of more survivors being found.

Officials said 49 people from the film crew or local support staff were missing, while nine were safe — seven who were not with the others and two who got out of the disaster area. Sergei Bodrov's father, a famous film director, and his wife also arrived in North Ossetia on Tuesday with Shoigu.

Bodrov made his first movie in 1992, but it was four years later that he riveted Russian and foreign viewers in "Prisoner of the Caucasus," which was directed by his renowned father who now lives in the United States.

The movie, based on Leo Tolstoy's novella of the same title about two Russian soldiers taken hostage in Chechnya, updated the tale to take place amid the war then raging between Chechen separatists and the Russian army.

Released in the United States as "Prisoner of the Mountains" — the title perhaps changed to avoid confusion with a 1960s comedy that was one of the Soviet film industry's most popular releases — was nominated for an Academy Award and raised Russian cinephiles' hopes that the industry was regaining its vigor after years of money problems.

The next year saw those hopes fulfilled — and the Caucasus connection continued — with the release of "The Brother." Bodrov played a disillusioned Chechnya war veteran who becomes a lone vigilante in the crime-festering cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Audiences identified with the antiheroic role of a killer with morals and ideals and critics hailed it as the first true movie of "the New Russia."

Bodrov's boyish looks, his full lips often set in a tentative smile, seemed to emphasize the conflicting currents of confusion and violence in the character.

Bodrov "is, in a certain sense, an image of our time, a hero of our time," Nikita Mikhalkov, director of the international hit "Burnt by the Sun," said Tuesday on Russia's ORT television.

In 1999, he appeared in the French-made "East-West" with Catherine Deneuve, another Academy Award foreign film nominee and followed that with "The Brother 2," which also got attention internationally. His most recent foreign release was in "Bear's Kiss," again directed by his father, which appeared at the prestigious Venice Film Festival this summer.

He further boosted his popularity at home by hosting the television show "The Last Hero," a reality-based show similar to the U.S. "Survivor."

Bodrov wrote and directed 2001's "Sisters" and was at work on his second production as director/actor/writer when the avalanche hit.

The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda said the movie's working title was "Svyaznoi" (Liaison), about three men from different social strata who are in love with the same woman. Bodrov chose the grim role of a garbage collector with artificial legs who dies at the film's end.

In a headline combining references to the film and his TV fame, the newspaper on Tuesday wrote "Mysterious premonition of the famous actor: Hero Bodrov would have died in new film."

Bodrov and his wife Svetlana have two children, a 4-year-old daughter and a son born in late August.