| Director: | Andrei Konchalovsky |
|---|---|
| Production: | Alisher Usmanov, Andrei Konchalovsky Studios (Andrei Konchalovsky) |
| Running Time: | 120’ |
| Language: | Russian |
| Country: | Russia |
| Main Cast: | Julia Vysotskaya, Vladislav Komarov, Andrei Gusev, Yulia Burova, Sergei Erlish |
| Screenplay: | Andrei Konchalovsky, Elena Kiseleva |
| Cinematographer: | Andrey Naidenov |
| Editor: | Sergei Taraskin, Karolina Maciejewska |
| Production Designer: | Irina Ochina |
| Costume Designer: | Konstantin Mazur |
| Sound: | Polina Volynkina |
| Visual Effects: | Alexander Serkov, Simon Assekritov |
Cinema
Dorogie Tovarischi! (Dear Comrades!)
Venezia 77 Competition
SYNOPSIS
USSR, Novocherkassk, 1962. Lyudmila is a member of the local Communist Party. She’s a staunch upholder of the Communist regime and ideals and despises any form of dissent. During a labour strike at the local electromotive factory, she witnesses the shooting on the protesters by the Army sent by the government to quell the strike: a massacre. An event that will change her vision of the world forever. The city is torn apart by riots, arrests, hasty convictions and by the curfew. Many people are injured and several ones are missing. Precisely in those days Lyudmila’s daughter disappears into thin air and the woman starts an anguished, dangerous and relentless search, in spite of the blockade of the city, the arrests and the attempt at a cover-up by the authorities. The movie is based on a true story that happened on June 2nd, 1962 in Novocherkassk and kept secret until the Nineties. The investigation was started in 1992. The victims were secretly buried in graves under fake names so they could never be found. Major suspects among the top Soviet officials were dead at that time. Culprits have never been convicted.
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
I wanted to make a film about the generation of my parents, the one that fought in and survived World War II with a conviction that it was honorable to die “for Homeland, for Stalin” and an unconditional trust in the goals of communism: to create a new society through efforts of millions of people. I wanted to reconstruct with the utmost accuracy the events that really happened, and an era in which history revealed the unbridgeable gap between communist ideals and the tragic reality of facts. This film is a tribute to the purity of that generation, its sacrifices, and the tragedy it experienced seeing its myths collapse and its ideals betrayed.
PRODUCERS/DISTRIBUTORS
PRODUCTION: Alisher Usmanov, Andrei Konchalovsky - Andrei Konchalovsky Studios
21/1 Pravdy street
125124 – Moscow, Russian Federation
Tel. +7 4952551617
info@konchalovsky.ru
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