In the post-war years, many photographs and film chronicles made during the blockade were confiscated and destroyed, as they represented an excessively “subjective view” on the events of that time.
“City under siege” is the result of a lengthy search in the Leningrad archives. Of the thousands of war photographs that were preserved, director Pavel Kogan selected 400 which were previously never used in cinema.
The film is a montage of these documents of the era, and voice-overs are provided by the poets Olga Berggolts and Alexander Prokofiev, radio announcer Yury Levitan, and air warning signals are heard…
The life of the blockade, which was turned by the official authorities into the abstract collective victory of the residents of Leningrad, is shown by Pavel Kogan as personal tragedies, as the fates of individual people.
The director dedicated the film to his father, who died of starvation in the blockade
Source : 2010.ru.spbkinoforum.ru