100 Minutes

Based on the novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (“The Gulag Archipelago”): Eastern Front, World War II: Ivan (Filipp Yankovsky) is arrested by the Wehrmacht after a heroic battle. Miraculously, he survives his brutal captivity as a prisoner of war. But no sooner has he arrived home than he is sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag in Siberia. In his struggle against the constant cold, despite hunger, violence, and injustice, Ivan does not lose hope of one day seeing his daughter again. “The film was already screened in 2021 at the Piazza Grande in Locarno. It is doubtful whether it could still be made today, following Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, with its critique of the excesses of Stalinism.” (Michael Ranze, in: FILMDIENST) “A critical drama by veteran director Gleb Panfilov that, following the brief war scenes, focuses unspectacularly—without forced dramatization—exclusively on everyday life in the camp, with the struggle against the cold and harassment, but also on solidarity among the prisoners.” (Lexikon des Internationalen Films)