“Burnt by the Sun”

In 1994, Nikita Mikhalov directed one of his most famous film “Утомлённые солнцем” (Burnt by the sun). Set during the Great Purge in the late 1930s, it depicts one day in the life of an old officer of the Red Army.

Produced by N. Mikhalkov and French producer Michel Seydoux, the film received the Grand Prize at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and many other awards.

The plot:

1936. The colonel Sergei Petrovich Kotov (N. Mikhalkov) is spending the summer in his summer house with his wife Maroussia and their daughter Nadia. Kotov is a well known and respected member of the Red Army, a legendary hero of the Russian Civil War.

Arrives Mitya, ex nobleman and veteran of the White Army. Mitya was Maroussia's fianc? before disappearing in the mid 1920s. He blames Kotov who had conscripted him into the CHEKA to be responsible of the lost of his beloved and of his faith for his country.

But today, he works for the Soviet political police (NKVD) and he is here to take his revenge on Kotov.