Nachalo (1970)

A film-in-film story set in a provincial town in Russia. Pasha (Churikova) is an amateur actress who plays a witch at a local club, but her dream is to play Joan of Arc. In a strike of luck... See full summary »

Director:

Gleb Panfilov

Writers:

Yevgeni Gabrilovich, Gleb Panfilov

Stars:

Inna Churikova, Valentina Telichkina, Tatyana Stepanova

Cast

Cast overview:
Inna Churikova	...	Pasha Stroganova / Joan of Arc
Valentina Telichkina	...	Valya (as V. Telichkina)
Tatyana Stepanova	...	Katya (as T. Stepanova)
Leonid Kuravlyov	...	Arkadi (as L. Kuravlyov)
Mikhail Kononov	...	Pavlik (as M. Kononov)
Nina Skomorokhova	...	Zina (as N. Skomorokhova)
Tatyana Bedova	...	Toma (as T. Bedova)
Yuri Klepikov	...	Director (as Yu. Klepikov)
Gennadi Beglov	...	Odinokov (as G. Beglov)
Yuri Vizbor	...	Stepan Ivanovich (as Yu. Vizbor)
Vyacheslav Vasilyev	...	Stepan Vitalyevich (as V. Vasilyev)
Yevgeni Lebedev	...	Cauchon (as Ye. Lebedev)
Vsevolod Sobolev	...	Massieu (as V. Sobolev)
Gerasim Zhukovsky	...	Boriska (as Gera Zhukovsky)

Storyline

A film-in-film story set in a provincial town in Russia. Pasha (Churikova) is an amateur actress who plays a witch at a local club, but her dream is to play Joan of Arc. In a strike of luck she is cast as Joan of Arc in a big screen film. Now she is torn between her luck and her love to Arkadi (Kuravlev) who is a married man.

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Plot Keywords:

joan of arc | amateur actress | love | actress | film in film | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Details

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Release Date:

12 October 1970 (Soviet Union)

Also Known As:

The Beginning

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lenfilm Studio

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Featured in Women Filmmakers in Russia (1988)

User Reviews

Joan of Arc in Russian Province

"Nachalo" or "The Beginning" is Gleb Panfilov's masterwork, IMO, and his most popular film with the critics and audiences alike. Its heroine is a young woman, Pasha Stroganova (Inna Churikova in her most powerful double performance as Pasha and Joan), a factory worker in a small provincial town, who dreams of love, and spends her spare time acting in a local drama group. Her best role is "Baba Yaga", an old wicked witch in the stage adaptation of a folk fairy tale. She is discovered by a film director looking for an unknown actress to play Joan of Arc in his next movie and who is very impressed by Pasha's natural talent, temperament, love for acting and her face which is far from pretty but is unusual and fascinating, with its inner fire. I read that Panfilov was dreaming of making "Joan of Arc" with Churikova as the legendary Maid of Orleans after the success of "The Beginning", and I can only guess why it never happened in the former Soviet Union. The scenes of "Joan of Arc" inside "The Beginning" are stunning in every regard, and Churikova's face is reminiscent of the greatest screen Joan ever, Renee Maria Falconetti.