He was born to an
Irish father Arthur Howard Rowe, (an engineer, who in 1905 came under contract to Russia to establish flour-milling) hence his unusual (for Russia) family name, and a
Greek mother, known as Julia Karageorgia. His father worked in
Yuryevets and in 1914 returned to Ireland, leaving the family in unstable Russia. Starting in 1930, Alexander worked at
Mezhrabpomfilm as an assistant director to
Yakov Protazanov on the films
Marionettes (1934) and
Without a Dowry (1937), as well as with other directors. From 1937, he worked at the "Soyuzdetfilm" studio, later known as the
Gorky Film Studio. He directed 15 fantasy films as well as a comedy and three short documentaries. Most of them were based on the Russian folklore or Russian fantasy books, such as by
Nikolai Gogol,
Petr Yershov, and
Vitali Gubarev. They were a part of
folk revival trend in the Soviet cinema, alongside films by
Aleksandr Ptushko,
Ivan Ivanov-Vano,
Lev Atamanov, and others. Rou's movies were immensely popular in the Soviet Union and set up a tradition of fantasy films that was followed by younger directors including
Dmitry Dyachenko. Rou died in 1973 in a Moscow hospital while working on pre-production of his final movie
Finist, the brave Falcon. It was completed by
Gennady Vasilyev after his death. ==Selected filmography==