Stanislav Weiting-Radzinsky

Karmelyuk

About the uprising of Ukrainian peasants under the leadership of the national hero Karmelyuk against landowners and Polish gentry. In the 1830s, Young Count Piglovsky returns to his estate from Paris. The carriage in which he is riding is surrounded by rebellious peasants. Their attempt to hang the master is canceled almost at the last moment, because it is not the count in the carriage, but his lackey - Ustym Karmelyuk. Ustym really serves as a lackey in the count's house and at the same time leads a peasant uprising. The government sends the army. In a fierce fight, Karmelyuk is almost captured, but he is saved by one of the serfs.

Blown Up Days

The year 1929. A “shock worker” from a tractor plant visits a film studio premises and is furious to see fake stage designs for a kitsch production about a Soviet life. He refuses to help the crew with his tractor, but is happy to ask one of the cameramen to go with him to visit an actual Soviet village. There they witness the birth of the kolkhoz and the dekulakization of wealthy villagers. Then they are transported to the future, to the year 1932, when the first five-year plan is done and the commune-sovkhoz is established. Movies can move faster than time, but the pace of change in Soviet society is even faster than that. In the movie, the entrance gate of the Odesa film factory, where all of the indoors scenes were shot, can be seen. The outdoors scenes were filmed all over Eastern Ukraine and Southern Russia (Kuban): at Kharkiv factories, in Ukrainian villages and in the 240 ha-sovkhoz “Gigant” in Rostov region, the latter representing the future after the five-year plan.