The 69th Parallel

A film record of a Soviet expedition to Pamir, not to be confused with Krysha Mira, a different 1928 expedition film also about Pamir, directed by Vladimir Erofeyev, released in USA as Roof Of the World. A pictorial record of the 1928 Russian-German expedition to explore and map an area of the unexplored heart of the Pamirs. During the expedition, three German researchers (E. Allwein, E. Schneider and Karl Wien) made the first attempt to reach the highest point of the Trans-Alai Range, which at that time had the name of the Kaufman Peak (today, Lenin Peak or Ibn Sina). They started climbing upstream of the Saukdara river and continued climbing along the Greater Saukdara Glacier towards the Krilenko Pass at 5820 m. On September 25, 1928 they started climbing from the saddle along the NE Ridge and at 15.30 they made the first ascent of Lenin Peak at an altitude of 7127 m.

Produced by the Soviet Union to justify its 1939-40 Winter War campaign in Finland, this outstanding documentary---more than any other such cinematic record---visually depicts the much vaunted Mannerheim Line in all its actual emplacements, as seen but two weeks after their capture, and as filmed by Red Army combat photographers onsite, directed by Vasili Belayev.

About the partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War.

The film opens with an animated map. Starting off in Moscow, the center of the new empire, it leads through Samara and Orenburg to Tashkent, Osh, and further on to the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia. The crew is shown arriving in Osh, in present-day Kyrgyzstan, the expedition’s base. Camera records a picturesque bazaar, veiled women in the streets, and the expedition’s crew, horses, and camels, along with their heavy loads. After leaving Osh, the crew crosses the Taldyk Pass, and makes its first stop in the Alay Valley. Different elements of the trek are featured, including crossing mountain rivers, traversing snowy passes, and descending into valleys in bloom. In the Alay Valley the camera records the practices of the Kyrgyz nomads – constructing a tent, keeping goats, sheep, and horses, making dairy products, and working a traditional one-shuttle weaver’s loom. The community is presented as traditional and self-sufficient.

Documentary about the heroic battle of the Black Sea Fleet against the German-fascist invaders during the Great Patriotic War.

The plot of the picture is based on a comparison of life in the Estonian SSR and in independent Estonia from a socialist point of view.