Vitaly Melnikov. A Director’s Fate

A film about the life and fate of filmmaker Vitaly Melnikov. The son of an “enemy of the people,” a student of Yutkevich and Eisenstein, and a witness to both Stalin’s cult of personality and its subsequent dismantling, Melnikov directed such celebrated films as “The Chief of Chukotka,” “Mother Got Married,” “The Elder Son,” “Vacation in September,” “Marry a Captain,” and “Poor, Poor Pavel.”

This documentary about Vitaly Melnikov tells both the personal story of the filmmaker and the history of Russia — two stories that are impossible to separate.