Known for Acting
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.
On the struggle of artisanal peasants against the economic oppression by the kulaks.
It is a history of founding Odesa at the location of former Turkish fortress Khadjibey.
Based on a short story by O. Henry "The Ransom of the Red Chief". Three boys meet by chance. Myshko, a pioneer, is walking down the street in the ranks of a pioneer unit, while the homeless Semen is standing behind the unit, and Mr. Zhorzhyk is looking out of the window. The second time the boys meet is in the Crimea, where Myshko travels with the pioneers, the panych in a soft carriage with a bonnet, and Semen between the cars. Semen is kidnapped by bandits who mistake him for Zhorzhyk. Meanwhile, Zhorzhyk escapes from his bondage to a pioneer detachment. Soon, Semyon ends up there as well.
