His father Yakov Culish was from Chisinäu. Only days before his death, Culish had overseen a meeting of Moscow's Union of Filmmakers, which he had led for the last year, which resolved to rejoin the Russian body from which it had broken away after considerable conflict three years earlier. Also president of Moscow's Guild of Directors, Culish's diplomatic skills meant that he was held in high respect throughout the local industry. In recent years hehad assumed a wider social role and was president of the national Window Onto Europe Festival, held each summer in Russias most western mainland city, Vyborg, on the Finnish border. He was also coordinator of themonumental series "100 Films About Moscow", initiated in 1998 to mark the 850th anniversary of the Russian capital. After working at Mosfilm and in TV as well as serving as an assistant to Soviet classic helmer Mikhail Romm on his film "Ordinary Fascism", Culish requalified as a theatrical director. His first major film, "Dead Season"(1968), about a Soviet spy tracking down an ex-Nazi war criminal, achieved extraordinary critical and popular success, with almost 35 million admissions in the year of its release. His "Tragedy in the Rock Style" (1989), with a strong rock score and some then-scandalous scenes of sex and drug abuse, caught the mood of early perestroika and the extent of the gap between generations.