Dear Comrades!
dir. Andrei Konchalovsky · 2020
The struggle for truth and personal connection can shatter deeply held beliefs and reshape one's understanding of existence.
Lyudmila, a devoted communist Party executive, finds her world shattered when she witnesses a brutal government crackdown on striking workers in Novocherkassk. As she searches for her missing daughter amidst the chaos, the film immerses viewers in a haunting exploration of loyalty, ideology, and the personal cost of political conviction. Watching it is a deeply unsettling experience, as the stark realities of oppression and the fragility of belief unfold in a meticulously crafted narrative.
Novocherkassk, USSR, 1962. Lyudmila is a Party executive and devout communist who had fought in WWII for Stalin's ideology. Certain that her work will create a communist society, the woman detests any anti-Soviet sentiment. During a strike at the local electromotive factory, Lyudmila witnesses a laborers' piquet gunned down under orders from the government that seeks to cover up mass labor strikes in USSR. After the bloodbath, when survivors flee from the square, Lyudmila realizes her daughter has disappeared. A gaping rift opens in her worldview. Despite the blockade of the city, mass arrests, and the authorities' attempts to cover up the massacre, Lyudmila searches for her daughter. We don't know how the search will end, but realize that the woman's life won't ever be the same.
