From 1963, Vasily Shukshin worked as a director at the Gorky Central Film Studio for Children and Youth. In the same year, he began shooting the film There Is Such a Lad based on his works Crankshafts, Grinka Malyugin, Cool Driver, and Internal Content. Valery Ginzburg was the film operator, Alexander Vagichev was the designer, and the music was written by Pavel Chekalov.
The film was produced in Shukshin’s homeland, near the villages of Aya, Dubrovka, Manzherok and Maima. The writer invited his second cousin, artist Ivan Popov, who knew the Altai Mountains well, to find locations for outdoor shooting.
The film’s main character, Pashka Kolokolnikov, was a simple and sincere guy, a dreamer. He was a driver and ran a Soviet-made truck along the Chuisky road every day. The author endowed him with an appealing feature: when other people were happy, he was sincerely happy too. Amid Pashka’s daily activities, there was a place for a feat: when some truck tanks burst into flames at an oil depot, he kept his wits, got behind the wheel of the burning truck and sent it down a slope. The oil depot was saved, and the people were unharmed. Pashka himself was wounded, and everyone treated him as a hero. As Shukshin said later in a commentary to the Art and Cinema magazine, “I wanted to make a film about the beauty of a pure human heart, capable of good deeds.”
The film stars Lidia Aleksandrova, Bella Akhmadulina, Rodion Nakhapetov, Nina Sazonova, Renita Grigoryeva and Yuri Grigoryev. Shukshin chose Leonid Kuravlev, a 4th-year student at VGIK, the Russian State Institute of Cinematography, for the main role of Pashka. Sergei Gerasimov, a member of the film’s artistic council, was sceptical about the choice and asked the director: ‘Do you believe in this actor? ’ ‘I do, ” answered Shukshin. “Well, then go ahead. Just remember: you will be judged as a director by your first film, ” Gerasimov said.
There Is Such a Lad was released on 1 September 1964. The film was screened at Soviet cinemas and abroad and won several awards, including the first prize of the All-Union Film Festival in Leningrad and the Golden Lion of St. Mark in the Children”s Films nomination, the highest prize given at the International Film Festival in Venice.
The film was produced in Shukshin’s homeland, near the villages of Aya, Dubrovka, Manzherok and Maima. The writer invited his second cousin, artist Ivan Popov, who knew the Altai Mountains well, to find locations for outdoor shooting.
The film’s main character, Pashka Kolokolnikov, was a simple and sincere guy, a dreamer. He was a driver and ran a Soviet-made truck along the Chuisky road every day. The author endowed him with an appealing feature: when other people were happy, he was sincerely happy too. Amid Pashka’s daily activities, there was a place for a feat: when some truck tanks burst into flames at an oil depot, he kept his wits, got behind the wheel of the burning truck and sent it down a slope. The oil depot was saved, and the people were unharmed. Pashka himself was wounded, and everyone treated him as a hero. As Shukshin said later in a commentary to the Art and Cinema magazine, “I wanted to make a film about the beauty of a pure human heart, capable of good deeds.”
The film stars Lidia Aleksandrova, Bella Akhmadulina, Rodion Nakhapetov, Nina Sazonova, Renita Grigoryeva and Yuri Grigoryev. Shukshin chose Leonid Kuravlev, a 4th-year student at VGIK, the Russian State Institute of Cinematography, for the main role of Pashka. Sergei Gerasimov, a member of the film’s artistic council, was sceptical about the choice and asked the director: ‘Do you believe in this actor? ’ ‘I do, ” answered Shukshin. “Well, then go ahead. Just remember: you will be judged as a director by your first film, ” Gerasimov said.
There Is Such a Lad was released on 1 September 1964. The film was screened at Soviet cinemas and abroad and won several awards, including the first prize of the All-Union Film Festival in Leningrad and the Golden Lion of St. Mark in the Children”s Films nomination, the highest prize given at the International Film Festival in Venice.
