Alexandr Smirnov

On the uniqueness and significance of I.S. Turgenev's theater, and the connection between his dramaturgy and prose.

The film is dedicated to the heroines of Ostrovsky’s plays—wives, cooks, actresses, matchmakers. For the most part, these are composite characters, but many of them have real-life prototypes. The author was a keen observer and recorded everything interesting in his diary. This is how the gallery of images from his native Zamoskvorechye, where Ostrovsky was born, came into being. Later, after traveling along the Volga, portraits of residents from small towns along the river were added. Alexander Nikolaevich never overlooked the details. When the playwright described daily life, the details of clothing, or the manner of speaking of a character, the hero would literally come to life.

Boris Pasternak, creator of the immortal Dr Zhivago, discredited by Stalin and denied the Nobel Literature Prize by Khrushev, Pasternak's Dr Zhivago was banned in the USSR until 1988. Only now in the new spirit of freedom and reconciliation that exists the story of Pasternak can be told. The words of Pasternak are spoken by Robert Powell, with Imogen Stubbs as Lara and Olga.

A young zoologist interrupts his scientific expedition after learning about the sudden death of his father, a major trade figure. From the notes left behind by his father, the young man discovers with horror that he could not bear the betrayal revealed to him by his closest friend and ally, who also turned out to be his wife’s lover.