Celebration (2001)

Original title: Праздник

To mark the 60 years since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The film is set in a small village in western Russia. It is a story about two days from the life of an ordinary family: a father, a mother and their five-year-old daughter. That’s what Garik Sukachyov says about his film: “On June 22, 1941, a family is celebrating the daughter’s birthday. It is a beautiful sunny day, full of joy and merriment. For the girl, it is filled with important events and adventure – her birthday is celebrated by the whole village, not just by her family. And no one yet knows that tomorrow her father will leave for his work in a district center and come back a few hours later in a home guard uniform only to say goodbye to his family. And that at the moment of their leave-taking the Germans already will be entering the village. And that they will be shot by the river, on the same bank where only yesterday the carefree, happy family was sunbathing and having fun…”