Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky 's film '' Andrei Rublev '' ( 1966 ) is a portrait of the medieval Russian icon painter of the same name . The film is also about artistic freedom and the possibility and necessity of making art for , and in the face of , a repressive authority . A cut version of the film was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival , where it won the FIPRESCI prize . At the end of the decade , Stanley Kubrick 's '' 2001 : A Space Odyssey '' ( 1968 ) wowed audiences with its scientific realism , pioneering use of special effects , and unusual visual imagery . In 1969 , Andy Warhol released '' Blue Movie '' , the first adult art film depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States . According to Warhol , '' Blue Movie '' was a major influence in the making of '' Last Tango in Paris '' , an internationally controversial erotic art film , directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and released a few years after '' Blue Movie '' was made . In Soviet Armenia , Sergei Parajanov 's '' The Color of Pomegranates '' , in which Georgian actress Sofiko Chiaureli plays five different characters , was banned by Soviet authorities , unavailable in the West for a long period , and praised by critic Mikhail Vartanov as " revolutionary " ; and in the early 1980s , '' Les Cahiers du Cinéma '' placed the film in its top 10 list . In 1967 , in Soviet Georgia , influential Georgian film director Tengiz Abuladze directed '' Vedreba '' ( Entreaty ) , which was based on the motifs of Vaja-Pshavela 's literary works , where story is told in a poetic narrative style , full of symbolic scenes with philosophical meanings . In Iran , Dariush Mehrjui 's '' The Cow '' ( 1969 ) , about a man who becomes insane after the death of his beloved cow , sparked the new wave of Iranian cinema
1969 Cannes Film Festival
1969 Cannes Film Festival
Art film