Strategical factory should be evacuated. The movie shows how destinies of those working on the factory and their families are being broken. And yet - they have no choice, but to live.
Acting
Gurchenko's Elvira — fragile, fierce, unforgettable.
Direction
Matveyev wields stillness like a weapon.
Production
Soviet industrial decay captured in grim, gorgeous detail.
Director
Yevgeny Matveyev
Lyudmila Gurchenko
Elvira
Valeriya Zaklunnaya
Masha
Nikolay Kryuchkov
Panchenko
Yevgeny Matveyev
Kirillov
Vladimir Samoylov
Shadurov
Aleksandr Parra
Lunin
Evgeniy Lazarev
Demchenko
Pyotr Chernov
Rubtsov
Yevgeni Kindinov
Gureev
Ferhad Israfilov
Rustam
Oleg Izmailov
Mateikin
Sergei Ivanov
Gontsov
Roman Khomyatov
Ilyushin
Vladimir Zemlyanikin
Kruglov
Gennadiy Yukhtin
Petrov
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released during late Brezhnev stagnation, the film's bleakness was quietly subversive — audiences read it as commentary on their own suffocating system.
Matveyev cast himself as Kirillov after firing the original actor for 'insufficient moral weight' — typical Soviet director ego or genuine vision?
SU
