Monday, November 16, 2015

Panfilov's Twenty Eight Men

That's the title of a movie that is rapidly approaching theaters; its premiere is expected early next year. Here goes its official trailer.


Titles are provided in Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian (Latin), Spanish, and Turkish languages.

The movie is devoted to one of the toughest episodes of the WW2 (and, for the matter, the Great Patriotic War, as it was for the USSR, and remains for us its ex-people): defence of Moscow from advancing Hitler troops in October-November, 1941 by men of the 316th Infantry Division under command of Major General Ivan Panfilov.

For the mass bravery and heroism of its men the Division was awarded and became the 8th Guards Infantry Division on November 18, 1941; on that very day its commander was killed by an enemy shelling, and the Division was allowed to bear its legendary commander's name (there were only two Divisions in the Red Army that used names of their former commanders; the other one was named after Vasily Chapaev, a legendary hero of the Civil War).

The legend of the 28 Panfilov's men who stood to death on November 16, 1941 during the small Battle of Dubosekovo, skilfully used (and, for this particular case, evidently exagerrated) by propaganda system, effectively inspired Soviet people to fight and work harder. Anyhow, the Moscow was defended by many true self-sacrificing heroes; the Panfilov's Division alone lost more than 3600 men KIA and 6300 WIA. And the words of political officer Klochkov "Russia is a vast land, yet there is nowhere to retreat — Moscow is behind us!" were not an invention of journalists; it was the call — and the truth — of time. The movie is expected to resemble many thousands of individual and mass heroic acts that allowed our country to survive and win.

What is the most special thing about the movie, was the crowdfunding campaign its team used for financing the project at its initial stage. More than 34.4 millions Rubles were collected; it's not that much money for a movie production (slightly more than 0.5 mil. USD), however it is an unprecedented result for Russia, clearly demonstrating what we Russians would like to see in the theaters.

And the movie promises to become a real boom, as this perfectly made trailer clearly shows.

We will see!

Official web site of the movie


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