65 minutes of Soviet men lying about ducks. That's it. That's cinema.
The film is based on the story "Hunter's Smiles" by writer Ostap Vishnya. Once a year, it would seem, normal, even very respectable people are turning into children who have received a long-awaited toy, or to some kind of "barons of münchhausen". Famous singers, famous surgeons, pensioners, peaceful accountants - all fall into childhood: they store up with waders, dry gunpowder, clean hunting rifles. And from their conversations trembling takes: one tells how he hunted immediately after two bears, the second "sewers" he put like rabbits, the third one shot ten ducks "shot" ... This all means that the hunting season has come!
Acting
Hrynko's deadpan commitment to nonsense
Writing
Vishnya's source material: lies, beautifully structured
Director
Viktor Ivanov
Mykola Hrynko
Ivan Kuzmich
Mikhail Svetin
Семён Семёнович
Konstantin Sorokin
Передерий
Aleksandr Lenkov
Петр
Nina Ilyina
Галя
Vladimir Alekseyenko
Aleksandr Tolstykh
Корж
Volodymyr Shakalo
Кузьма
Valentyna Ivashova
Vava
Aleksandr Vigdorov
Arkadiy Arkadyev
Fedir Vasyliovych
Vladimir Nechiporenko
эпизод
Konstantin Gubenko
ded Svirid - yeger'
Vitaliy Doroshenko
Semon -brakon'yer
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Ostap Vishnya was a Ukrainian satirist who survived Stalin's purges by being funny enough to stay alive. His hunting stories gently mocked Soviet bureaucrats escaping to nature.
Director Viktor Ivanov made this between war epics. The entire film was shot at a real hunting club near Kyiv, and several 'actors' were actual hunters who refused direction.
SU
