Dear Comrades

Russian master Andrei Konchalovsky returns with his most compelling film in years. Dear Comrades is a stylish and clinical expose of Soviet oppression in a small provincial town in 1962. It’s also a gripping personal story centred on one family. Loyal Communist Party official Lyuda is shocked to learn about a strike at the local factory, including her own daughter who is now missing. As the situation spirals out of control, Lyuda begins a desperate search through curfews, mass arrests, and the authorities’ ruthless attempts to cover up state violence.

‘I wanted to make a film about the generation of my parents, the one that fought in and survived World War II with a conviction that it was honorable to die “for Homeland, for Stalin” and an unconditional trust in the goals of communism: to create a new society through efforts of millions of people. I wanted to reconstruct with the utmost accuracy the events that really happened, and an era in which history revealed the unbridgeable gap between communist ideals and the tragic reality of facts. This film is a tribute to the purity of that generation, its sacrifices, and the tragedy it experienced seeing its myths collapse and its ideals betrayed.’

Andrey Konchalovskiy, Director