For the scene where the cow is on fire, it was covered in an asbestos coat that protected it from actually being burned. But for the scene where the horse falls down the stairs, it was shot in the neck by director Andrei Tarkovsky. The crew acquired the horse from a slaughterhouse where it was going to be shot the next day.
Theophanes the Greek (c. 1340 - c. 1410) was a Greek artist from Constantinople and one of the greatest icon painters of Russia, and was noted as the teacher and mentor of Andrei Rublyov.
In this film, director Andrei Tarkovsky drew on his own creative development and religious struggles as a way to interrogate Christianity as an axiom of Russia's historical identity.
Selected by the Vatican in the "religion" category of its list of 45 "great films."