Mikhail Mass

A 1981 documentary film directed by Yuri Ozerov. It showed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1980 Summer Olympics held in Moscow. The director was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1982. The film was selected as the Soviet entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 54th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

“This film discloses the responsibility adults bear towards children whom they abandon. This is a problem of society’s responsibility to its future. The war ended long ago, but the children’s homes were overflowing in the 1960s. When I found out about this, I was simply dumbfounded. I did not want to read the viewers a lecture, but hoped to affect them on an emotional level. This is one of my most beloved pictures. This is a motto of kindness, mercy, a message from man to the individual, this is the problem of a person’s responsibility to the future” (director Mikhail Litvyakov).

A camp for difficult teenagers: gangster songs, collectivism, belief in corrective work and high ideals. Theft and chasteness.

By means of documentary films, the authors try to explore the deep essence of Stalinism as a phenomenon that was and is based on the historical, psychological and social traditions of Russian society.