Original title: Lebedyne ozero. Zona.

Copyright: the Oleksander Dovzhenko Film Studio, Kyiv, Ukraine, 1980

Format: feature narrative

Carrier: DVD

Color: color

Length: 97 min.

Original language: Ukrainian

English subtitles: yes

Film crew

Director: Yurii Illienko

Script writer: Serhii Paradzhanov and Yuri Illienko

Director of photography: Yurii Illienko

Production designer: Oleksander Danylenko

Original music: Virko Baley

Sound editor: Bohdan Mykhnevych

Producers: Mykola Moroz (Canada), Borys Bilostotsky and Robert Gardine (Sweden)

Produced by the Oleksander Dovzhenko Film Studio, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Film cast

Viktor Solov'iov as the fugitive, Liudmyla Yefymenko as the woman, Maia Bulhakova as the old woman, Pylyp Illienko as the boy, Viktor Demertash as the prison guard, Mykola Tsiutsiura as the teacher, Vasyl Tsybenko as the rotten old man, Oleksander Danylenko as the fellow inmate, Serhii Povarov as the petty officer.

Synopsis

The film is based on a real-life story that was rather common in Soviet prisons. A prison guard donates his blood to an inmate for transfusion. The survivor inmate is rejected by his fellow convicts because his blood is supposedly 'contaminated'. Under the surface of the story Illienko unfolds a panorama of a spiritual wasteland that the Soviet Russian empire has been and the devastation it has caused in its subjects. The film is Illienko's "J'accuse" against the system and, at the same time, his grim prophecy of its imminent demise.

This film has been restored and digitally re-mastered as part of the 7-disk DVD gift set "Ukrainian Film Classics. Yuri Illienko," issued by the National Oleksander Dovzhenko Center in 2011.