Cinema
The First Teacher
Первый учитель
Andrei Konchalovsky · 1965
Synopsis
1923, in the aul of Koksai. Dyushen, a young Red Army soldier sent by the Komsomol, announces that he has come to teach the peasants to read. They size him up, mock him, and leave him alone with his mission. Among his pupils is Altynai, an orphan treated as a drudge, whom the village notable buys as a wife.
Context
Filming took place on the very sites of the action, in the mountains near the Chinese border, with peasants and shepherds recruited locally, and with the director's wife, Natalia Arinbasarova, in the role of the orphan; four years later she would take the title role in another adaptation of the same writer, which this catalogue includes. The film served as the graduation work of its director, who was then leaving film school, and was his first feature film; the writer co-signed the screenplay. The cinematography is by Georgi Rerberg and the music by Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov.
Who it is for
One hundred and two minutes, in black and white. It is worth knowing that the film shows livestock farming, Islam and village festivals without putting them at the service of a message, which gives it in places the value of an inquiry.
Prizes and reception
Silver Osella medal at the 1966 Mostra, where its lead actress received the Volpi Cup for best actress; Les Lettres françaises regarded it from the outset as a masterpiece.