Cinema
Posledniy mesyats oseni
Vadim Derbenyov · 1965
Synopsis
Two elderly parents have been waiting for years, in the family home, for their children, now grown and scattered across the country. In the autumn of his life, the father sets out and visits each of them, to find out whether they have stayed faithful to the values of their own people: Anton, a forester who lives alone, Andrei, a tractor mechanic, open and cheerful, in the midst of a large family, Serafim, a student in love, a budding poet and an athlete. Each visit forms a separate story.
Context
The film, made for Moldova-Film from a screenplay by Ion Druță adapting his own story, was released in Chișinău in September 1965. Evgeny Lebedev plays the father, Valentina Sperantova the mother, and Innokenty Smoktunovsky speaks the narrator's text; the music is by Eduard Lazarev. In 1966, the journal Sovetsky Ekran hailed in it a poetry of simple truths. According to Chișinăul meu, the film, well received at festivals, was afterwards banned by the authorities in Chișinău.
Who it is for
In Russian; an episodic film, moving from one visit to the next with no knotted plot and no twist.
Prizes and reception
Acting award for Evgeny Lebedev at Mar del Plata in 1966 and grand prize of a youth film magazine at Cannes in 1967.