Just a reminder that Andrei Konchalovsky‘s Dear Comrades! (Neon), winner of the 2020’s Venice Film festival Special Jury Prize, will begin to appear later this month. A virtual Film Forum booking begins on 12.25; other viewing opportunities will presumably follow in close order.

Excerpt of HE review, posted on 9.13.20: “Yesterday Andrei Konchalovsky‘s Dear Comrades (Dorohgie Tovarischi) won the Venice Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize. With Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland and Michael Franco‘s New Order taking the Golden and Silver Lion prizes, Konchalovsky’s film, an emotionally intense capturing of the 1962 Novocherkassk massacre, basically came in third.

“I didn’t see Franco’s film, but in my humble view the Konchalovsky is even-steven with the Zhao. It’s really quite stunning in its own severe but ravishing fashion, captured in bracing black-and-white and pushed along by the engine of Julia_Vysotskaya‘s lead performance, which is fierce and blistering.

“This infamous atrocity, which happened under the reign of Nikita Kruschev, was about the Russian military murdering 26 Russian citizens and the wounding 87 others in an effort to discourage angry protests over increased work quotas and food prices.”