Cinema
The Sailors of Kronstadt
Мы из Кронштадта
Yefim Dzigan · 1936
Synopsis
October 1919: Yudenich's White troops threaten Petrograd. The commissar Martynov arrives by boat at Kronstadt to form, with sailors of the Baltic Fleet, a detachment tasked with defending the city on land. The sailors at first distrust this civilian, who wins their respect by his courage. Among them, the young Artyom Balashov, a former troublemaker, joins the detachment, which takes up position at the front alongside the infantry.
Context
The screenplay is by Vsevolod Vishnevsky, and the film, produced by Mosfilm, was released on 20 March 1936; Georgi Berezko was its co-director, according to the Chapaev site. Vasily Zaichikov plays the commissar Martynov, Georgi Bushuyev Artyom Balashov and Oleg Zhakov the commander Draudin. In England, Graham Greene saw in it, in The Spectator, an unusual mixture of poetry and heroism. In English it circulates under two titles, The Sailors of Kronstadt and We Are from Kronstadt.
Who it is for
A sound war film of about an hour and a half, which can be followed without knowing the history of the civil war.
Prizes and reception
It won its director the Stalin Prize in 1941, according to the Cyril and Methodius encyclopaedia.