

Soccer match where losing means execution — would you let the Nazis win?
The film is based on the real fact — football «The Death Match» between the German team and a team of Soviet prisoners of war, former "Dinamo". It happened in Kiev on June 22, 1942. Anticipating the possibility of losing, the Germans made a condition — defeat or death. If the Germans won, the Soviet footballers were promised freedom...
Acting
Volov's Sokolovsky carries the weight of impossible choices.
Direction
Karelov turns a football pitch into a courtroom of conscience.

Director
Yevgeni Karelov
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Death Match's details remain disputed — some historians argue the 'win and die' narrative was postwar mythmaking.
Soviet cinema loved this story: multiple films, a monument, even a stamp — propaganda that outlived the USSR itself.