Based on a play by V. Rosov, the Russian The Cranes are Flying is a love story set during the early years of World War II. The film was directed at Mosfilm by Mikhail Kalatozov in 1957 and stars Aleksey Batalov and Tatiana Samoilova. The Cranes are Flying won several international awards including the Palme d'Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival.
Watch full length movie
The Cranes Are Flying online (Russian language, English subtitles)
Excerpts from cranesareflying's review on imdb:
"This film features a Red Army that is NOT victorious, the German invasion of Russia when Germany introduced the Barbarossa Plan, a blitzkrieg invasion intended to bring about a quick victory and the ultimate enslavement of the Slavs, and very nearly succeeded, actually getting within 20 miles of Moscow in what was a Red Army wipe out, a devastation of human losses, 15 to 20 million Russians died, or 20% of the entire population. Historically, this was a moment of great trauma and suffering, a psychological shock to the Russian people, but the Red Army held and prolonged the war 4 more years until they were ultimately victorious...
This film featured brilliant, breathtaking, and extremely mobile camera work from his extraordinary cinematographer Sergei Uresevsky, using spectacular crane and tracking shots, images of wartime, battlefields, Moscow and crowded streets that are extremely vivid and real.
The film was released in 1957 in Russia, and according to some reviews, "the silence in the theater was profound, the wall between art and living life had fallen...and tears unlocked the doors."
- cranesareflyingReception and Influence
As film scholar Josephine Woll observes, the protagonist Veronika was instrumental in shaping the post-Stalinist Soviet movies by heralding more complicated, multi-dimensional celluloid heroines. It was not only Soviet audiences that accepted and sympathized with Veronika‘s story. The lead actress of Cranes, the beautiful
Tat‘iana Samoilova, who was frequently identified with her role, took Europe by storm. Following the film's victory at the Cannes Film Festival in 1958, where it earned the event‘s prestigious Grand Prize, the world celebrated the film‘s main protagonist. Woll notes that the French Liberationcommentator, for example, approvingly contrasted Samoilova‘s purity and authenticity with that Western female icon, Brigitte Bardot
Sources: wiki, allrovi, imdb
mapping projection attempted in history. The Alfa show took place on September 4, 2011 at Vorob'yovy Gory (Sparrow Hills), 
As film scholar Josephine Woll observes, the protagonist Veronika was instrumental in shaping the post-Stalinist Soviet movies by heralding more complicated, multi-dimensional celluloid heroines. It was not only Soviet audiences that accepted and sympathized with Veronika‘s story. The lead actress of Cranes, the beautiful Tat‘iana Samoilova, who was frequently identified with her role, took Europe by storm. Following the film's victory at the Cannes Film Festival in 1958, where it earned the event‘s prestigious Grand Prize, the world celebrated the film‘s main protagonist. Woll notes that the French Liberationcommentator, for example, approvingly contrasted Samoilova‘s purity and authenticity with that Western female icon, Brigitte Bardot
