Viktor Astafyev

A movie about the Great Patriotic War seen though the eyes of the well-known Russian writer Victor Astafiev. The rare interview was recorded two years prior to the writer's death. Those bitter memories reveal the horrible truth of the war seen through the eyes of a common soldier and lived with his heart.

The film tells about the winner of the State Prize, writer Victor Astafyev. Rural landscapes shot in the village of Oatmeal: streets, the house where the writer was born. V. Astafyev tells about his life's path, reflects on modern problems, about the responsibility of man to himself; meets with fellow countrymen, readers.

Events take place in the White Sea, 1942. New recruit Andrei Bulygin is assigned as an assistant machine gunner on a small ship that delivers soldiers and weapons to the front line. On the way back, German fighters sink the ship, leaving only Andrei alive. Having got out on the ice, he enters into an unequal battle with the cold and the German pilot von Bettger attacking him from the air...

A hunter, returning to the Taiga forest, finds a dying girl in his cabin. He stoically nurses her back to life, but the differences between them may be too great for them to remain together. Based on the short story 'Dream of the White Mountains' by Viktor Astafyev.

Siberia, 1930s. Ten-year-old Ilka runs away from home to escape his stepmother and joins a team of loggers rafting wood along the Mana River. Here, the young hero learns the dangerous trade and finds friends.

The seventeen-year-old Mitya Nenashkin, whom the war found far behind the lines in Siberia, had to endure and see a lot of difficult and tragic things. But the overwhelming majority of Mitya met kind, courageous people who were ready to help others and share their last. In this environment, the character of a smart, brave guy who volunteered for the front was formed.

Falling Star is based on three stories by the contemporary Russian writer Viktor Astafyev and centers on a young soldier on the front lines who is wounded and taken to the hospital. Once there, he muses about his childhood and a little girl he had loved - someone who could easily have grown up to be the nurse that is attending to him now. As he recuperates, he and the nurse fall in love and he very much wants to marry her. At this point, the nurse's mother comes for a visit and advises him against such an action because if they were to marry and he were subsequently killed or maimed in action - the fighting is still close to the hospital - the nurse would suffer much more than if he just left her alone. Now it is up to the soldier to make a decision one way or the other.