The film is set in the 1930s in the USSR. The film tells about one day of the construction of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. The heroes of the film are simple construction workers who are burning at work. Upon learning that their colleagues in Kharkov have set a record, they mobilize to break it. The entire construction site was engulfed in immense socialist competition. The teams are ready to complete the work on time at any cost. A Moscow journalist who has come to cover the scale of the great construction project is looking for the hero of his report...
Cinematography
Steel and flesh merge in hypnotic industrial montage.
Direction
Two directors somehow make propaganda feel urgent and human.
Director
Sofiya Milkina
Inna Gulaya
Shura Soldatova
Tamara Syomina
Olya Tregubova
Sergei Yursky
Margulies
Leonid Kuravlyov
Korneyev
Aleksandr Yanvaryov
Ishchenko
Vladimir Kashpur
Khanumov
Stanislav Khitrov
Sayenko
Radner Muratov
Zagirov
Vadim Zobin
Mosya
Yelena Korolyova
Fenya
Larysa Kadochnykova
Katya
Tatyana Lavrova
Klava
Efim Kopelyan
Nalbandov
Yuri Volyntsev
writer
Igor Yasulovich
Vinkich
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Magnitogorsk was Stalin's showpiece 'socialist city,' built by forced labor and volunteers alike—this film scrubs that complexity for pure adrenaline.
Director Mikhail Shveitser later fell from official favor; this film's ecstatic tone became politically dangerous as Soviet optimism curdled.
SU
