A war-scarred pilot chases ghosts through Soviet streets—until a lullaby betrays the truth.
Pilot Losev, who lost his family during the war, learns that his daughter Aurika was saved during the bombing, and sets off in search of her. The former pilot will survive many fates and stories before a familiar chorus of a lullaby helps him to recognize his daughter in a random fellow traveler.
Cinematography
Shadow-drenched postwar cityscapes that breathe grief.
Acting
Timofeyev's hollow-eyed exhaustion says everything unsaid.
Score
The lullaby motif—deceptively simple, brutally effective.
Director
Mikhail Kalik
Nikolai Timofeyev
Losev
Viktoriya Lepko
Aurika, Losev's daughter
Lyubov Rumyantseva
Aurika
Yuriy Solovyov
sergeant Mikheyev
Mikhail Troyanovsky
archivist
Vladimir Zamanskiy
Andrei Petreanu
Lev Kruglyy
Lyova
Ekaterina Savinova
Olga
Vladimir Ratomsky
Dyomushkin
Klavdiya Polovikova
Anfisa
Yevgeni Teterin
Mikhail Yakovlevich
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kalik made this during the Khrushchev Thaw, when Soviet cinema briefly allowed personal grief to overshadow collective heroism.
Three actresses play Aurika at different ages—a casting choice that mirrors Losev's fractured, unreliable memory of her.
SU
