Naum Ardashnikov was born in Moscow on July 18, 1931. He studied at the faculty of VGIK operators, which he graduated in 1958. Naum Ardashnikov’s teacher was A.V. Galperin. Ardashnikov’s diploma work was the painting “The Youth of Our Fathers” directed by B. V. Krytsarev and M. N. Kalik.
Naum Ardashnikov was invited to the film studio "Tajikfilm" in 1959. Initially, the young specialist worked as a combined shooting operator and a second operator. In Dushanbe, he worked for five years, as an operator took part in the creation of paintings: “The Banner of the Blacksmith”, “Until tomorrow”, “There will be no silence”.
In 1965, Naum Ardashnikov moved to Moscow and got a job at Mosfilm. In the first year he shot the picture “Time forward!”, two years later he created the film “Your Contemporary”, and in 1969 – “A plot for a small story.”
In the seventies, the cameraman Naum Ardashnikov shot six films: All the Royal Men (1971), The Courtesy Visit (1972), Choosing a Goal (1974), The Strange Woman (1978), the novella The Return of the Doctor (1979), which was included in the second issue of the film almanac Youth, and The Poem of Wings (1979). Then followed the picture “Old New Year” (1980), the novel “What can Kuzenkov?”, included in the fourth issue of “Youth”, the films “Moon Rainbow” (1983) and “End of Eternity” (1987).
As a production operator, Naum Ardashnikov collaborated with such well-known directors at that time as M. A. Schweitzer, S. I. Yutkevich, Y. Y. Reismang and others. On the film “All the Royal Men”, created on the novel by R.P. Warren, Ardashnikov worked in co-authorship with A.Z. Gutkevich as an operator and director, and with O. Efremov he shot the picture “Old New Year”.
It came out in 1985.
Film "I Came and Speak" - the first independent work of Naum Ardashnikov as a director, which according to the results of a survey of readers of Komsomolskaya Pravda was named the best film of the year. After were the paintings “Moscow beauties” (1992), “Kotovasia” (1997), “Kill carp” (2005).
At the Mosfilm film studio, Ardashnikov worked for more than twenty years. In 1974 he received the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR. Naum Ardashnikov also collaborated with “Kinonovodskie notes”. In 2007, in the 82nd issue, his publication “A plot for a small story” was published, in the next issue appeared “Your Contemporary”, and then – “A Trip to Italy”. The first director’s work and other works.
Naum Ardashnikov in 2012 was the chairman of the “White Square” (a fine art award).
Naum Mikhailovich Ardashnikov died on March 31, 2012 in Moscow at the age of eighty.