Aleksandr KOTT
Александр КОТТ
Aleksandr KOTT
Russia / Belarus, 2010, 140mn 
Colour, fiction
Battle for honor. The Brest Fortress
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Брестская крепость

 

 La Bataille de Brest-Litovsk

 Brestskaya krepost

 
Directed by : Aleksandr KOTT (Александр КОТТ)
Writing credits : Aleksey DUDARYEV (Алексей ДУДАРЕВ), Vladimir EREMIN (Владимир ЕРЕМИН), Aleksandr KOTT (Александр КОТТ)
 
Cast
Pavel DEREVIANKO (Павел ДЕРЕВЯНКО) ...army commissar
Aleksey DMITRIEV (Алексей ДМИТРИЕВ)
Aleksandr KORSHUNOV (Александр КОРШУНОВ) ...Pyotr Gavrilov
Andrey MERZLIKIN (Андрей МЕРЗЛИКИН) ...Andrey Kizhevatov
 
Cinematography : Vladimir BASHTA (Владимир БАШТА)
Production design : Alim MATVEYCHUK (Алим МАТВЕЙЧУК)
Music : Yuri KRASAVIN (Юрий КРАСАВИН)
Sound : Anatoli BELOZEROV (Анатолий БЕЛОЗЕРОВ)
Produced by : Ruben DISHDISHIAN (Рубен ДИШДИШЯН), Igor UGOLNIKOV (Игорь УГОЛЬНИКОВ), Vladimir ZAMETALIN (Владимир ЗАМЕТАЛИН)
Production : Central Partnership, Mosfilm, Belarusfilm, TRO
Film revenue in Russia : 4.4047 million dollars
Spectators : 900 000
Release date in Russia : 04/11/2010
 
Sites : Page Allociné, page IMDb
VOD or DVD release in France : 2011-08-17, Site

Awards :
Best Set Decoration Alim MATVEYCHUK , "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 2010
Best Sound Philip LAMSHIN , Aleksandr BELOUSOV , "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 2010

DVD with subtitles
Editor : Universal. 2011. Titre : Battle For Honor : La Bataille de Brest-Litovsk.
Blu-Ray
Russe et Français en DTS-HD MA 5.1
Bonus : Making of / Bandes annonces

Plot synopsis
The sixty-fifth anniversary of victory in WorldWar 2 is being marked in Russia by at least two grandiose premieres. In the wake of The Exodus by Nikita Mikhalkov in autumn, on November 4, an equally significant war movie blockbuster will be released, The Brest Fortress.Astory inspired by the heroic defense of Brest, a city that in the very first days of the war found itself encircled deep inside the enemy’s rear, but which held out for nine days.“We are showing our heroes at the most dramatic moment in their lives, when they make a choice. They are both cowards who find their strength.Onthe other side, there are those who turned traitor,” says director Aleksandr Kott, who has previously shot TV serials, commercial cinema and prize-winning shorts, shown at festivals in Berlin, Krakow, Dresden, Kottbus and Kiev. The action of the movie captures events with the accuracy of a documentary and is based on an infallible plot device. A fifteen-year-old boy goes looking for a girl, and his search takes him around the labyrinths of the fortress and brings him into contact with all the heroes of its defense. This character is modeled on a real person, whowas one of the few survivors of the siege. The idea behind the movie is encapsulated in a single phrase discovered in one of the dungeons inside the fortress: “I’m dying but I won’t surrender”.
 

Commentaries and bibliography
RUSSIA BEYOND : Les dix meilleurs films de guerre russes, Boris EGOROV, RUSSIA BEYOND, 2020
RUSSIA BEYOND: Loin des clichés: douze films criants de vérité sur le front de l’Est durant la guerre, Boris EGOROV, RUSSIA BEYOND, 2020
Comment sont regardés les films sur la Grande Guerre patriotique dans la Russie actuelle ?, Myriam DÉSERT, The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, 2011
Aleksandr Kott : The Brest Fortress (Brestskaia krepost’, 2010), kinokultura.com, 2010
 

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- War in contemporary Russian cinema, kinoglaz.fr (France), 2023
- Strasbourg two weeks of Russian cinema, Strasbourg (France), 2015
- Marbella Russian Filmfest, Marbella (Spain), 2013
- Sputnik nad Polska, Warsaw (Poland), 2012
- Monaco Charity Film Festival, Monaco (Principality of Monaco), 2012
- Cycle "Cinema against terrorism", Different cities (Russia), 2012
- Yerevan International Film Festival "Golden Apricot", Yerevan (Armenia), 2011
- Russian Resurrection Film Festival, Different cities (Australia), 2011
- VOD or DVD release in France of the film:, Different cities (France), 2011
- Semaine des films russes au Maroc, Rabat (Morocco), 2011
- "Spirit of Fire" International Debut Film Festival, Khanty Mansiysk (Russia), 2011
- International Arctic Film Festival "Polar Lights", Murmansk (Russia), 2011
- Golden Eagle awards, Moscow (Russia), 2011
- Russian film festival in Sweden 'KinoRiurik', Stockholm (Sweden), 2011
- Award "White Elephant", Moscow (Russia), 2010
- Cinema and Theater Festival ''Autumn of Love'', Blagoveshchensk (Russia), 2010
- "Vyborg" Russian Film Festival (formerly ''A Window to Europe''), Vyborg (Russia), 2010
- Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), Moscow (Russia), 2010
- "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 2010
- Kyiv International Film Festival 'Molodist', Kiev (Ukraine), 2010

Photos and videos