Sinegoriya
About Sinegoriya
In the Volga town of Zatonsk, before the war, schoolteacher Arseny Petrovich Gai and his pupils Kapiton Butyryov, Valery Cherepashkin, and Timson invent a country called Sinegoriya, where people are loyal, kind, and brave. The tale's motto is 'Courage, Loyalty, Labor — Victory!' Gai is among the first to leave for the front and is killed defending Leningrad, far to the north. The boys form a detachment of 'sinegortsy.' They help soldiers' families and work at a war factory. When the death notice arrives, they name a boat they have repaired Arseny Gai and set its course for the place where he died.
Cast & crew
More about Sinegoriya
Erast Garin and Khesya Lokshina directed Lev Kassil's script from his story My Dear Boys (Dorogie moi malchishki). The premiere was 26 August 1946. A Ukrainian Wikipedia entry describes the release print as black and white.
Themes
Background
Kassil's wartime story, filmed in 1946, follows schoolboys in a Volga town who turn a made-up country into work for the front.
Making
Garin, better known as an actor, co-directed with Lokshina at Soyuzdetfilm and cast fellow director Boris Barnet as the teacher.
Look
Sergei Urusevsky photographed the black-and-white feature, cutting the Volga town against the imagined country.
Music
Pavel Armand wrote the score.
Preservation
The film survives and is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Boris Barnet plays Arseny Petrovich Gai.
- Konstantin Sorokin, Yevgeny Samoylov, Stepan Kayukov, Pavel Olenev, and Aleksey Konsovsky are in the cast.
- The Russian title is Синегория.
- Kinoafisha lists the running time as 85 minutes.
Scenes
- Gai and the boys invent Sinegoriya before the war.
- They paint the repaired boat with his name after the death notice.
Influenced by
- Lev Kassil's story My Dear Boys
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1946. Синегория.webm)
Quotes
Courage, Loyalty, Labor — Victory!
