Commissar (film)

Commissar
Film poster (1987)
Directed by	Aleksandr Askoldov
Written by	Aleksandr Askoldov
Based on	"In the Town of Berdichev" by Vasily Grossman
Starring	Nonna Mordyukova
Cinematography	Valeri Ginzburg
Music by	Alfred Schnittke
Production company	Gorky Film Studio
Release date	1967 (1967)
Running time	110 minutes
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian

Commissar (Russian: Комиссар, translit. Komissar) is a 1967 Soviet film directed by Aleksandr Askoldov based on one of Vasily Grossman's first short stories, "In the Town of Berdychev" (В городе Бердичеве).^[1] Berdychev is centrally located in the north of Ukraine. The action takes place during the Russian Civil War (1918–22), when the Red Army, White Army, Polish and Austrian contingents were battling for territory. Of equal importance is the fact that in Berdychev, at that time, the Yiddish language was officially instated and, from 1924, it had a Ukrainian court of law conducting its affairs in Yiddish.^[2] The plot is based upon an intimate intersection of revolutionary and Jewish cultural manners and ideals. The main characters were played by two People's Artists of the USSR, Rolan Bykov and Nonna Mordyukova. It was made at Gorky Film Studio.

Maxim Gorky considered this brief story one of the best about the Russian Civil War and encouraged the young writer to dedicate himself to literature. It also drew favourable attention from Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Pilnyak, and Isaac Babel.^[3]