News

News

Great Cinema of the Great Country

In the year of the 115th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Sholokhov and the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the film "The Fate of a Man", based on the same name story by Mikhail Sholokhov, will be shown in cinemas throughout Russia and the CIS states as part of the All-Russian campaign "Great Cinema of a Great Country." The action will take place on June 22 on the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow. The film is planned to be shown in two thousand cities on three thousand screens. 

The All-Russian action “Great cinema of a great country”, carried out on the initiative of the organizers of the All-Russian festival of television feature films “Morning of the Motherland” and with the support of the Presidential Administration and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, is aimed at preserving the memory of the events of the Great Patriotic War and the exploit of the Russian soldier, and promoting the “humanistic values ??of domestic cinema among young people on the basis of continuity, the restoration of the generations connection, the cultivation of feelings of patriotism. " 

A year ago, the film “Belorussky Station” was shown as part of the action. This year, the organizers of the action opted for the film "The Fate of a Man", shot by director Sergey Bondarchuk according to the story of Mikhail Sholokhov. 

Published at the turn of 1956-1957 on the pages of the newspaper “Pravda”, the story shocked the whole country. “Making this film was for me more than just a “creative plan”. This became the goal of my life”, Sergey Bondarchuk later recalled, speaking about the impression made on him that Sholokhov’s story about a Russian soldier, whose fate had undergone terrible trials, but did not break his spirit – he survived, defended his right to be a man, retained the ability to love. The fate of the protagonist is the generalized fate of the people who went through all circles of the war hell, who gained through sufferring the victory over fascism. 

The script for the film was written by Yuriy Lukin and Feodor Shakhmagonov, the roles in the film were played by Sergey Bondarchuk (Andrey Sokolov), Zinaida Kiriyenko (Irina), Pavlik Boriskin (Vanyushka), Yuri Averin (camp commandant), Evgeny Teterin (writer), Pavel Vinnikov, Lev Borisov and others. 

While working on the film, the crew had to travel a lot: the shooting took place on the Don, around the Rostov region, in Voronezh, in Tambov, in Kaliningrad, in Moscow in the Mosfilm pavilion. 

The film was released in April 1959 and made a huge impression on the domestic and foreign viewers: in the first year, almost 40 million people watched the film, according to an enquiry by the magazine “Soviet Screen” it became the best film of the year. The work of the film crew and the play of actors were awarded prizes at many domestic and international film festivals: the international film festival in Moscow, the X international film festival in Czechoslovakia, the XII international film festival in Karlovy Vary, the international film festival in Georgetown, the international film festival in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. 

“The Fate of a Man” is one of the best films about the war; it is included in the treasury of Soviet and world cinema.