Ilyich's Gate: Part I (Film 1962)

Ilyich's Gate is a 1962 drama film directed by Marlen Khutsiev. Screenplay by Khutsiev, Gennady Shpalikov. Cinematography by Margarita Pilikhina and Music by Nikolai Sidelnikov. Audio in Russian with English subtitles.
Part II: https://www.bitchute.com/video/dI3KNXh3z6VJ/

Infamously condemned by Khrushchev for sowing “discord in the friendly Soviet family,” Illych’s Gate was severely reedited after its brief release in 1962, and re-released two years later to little fanfare under the title "I Am Twenty". Illych’s Gate remained buried for nearly a half century, its restoration only taking place after perestroika. It is Khutsiev's most famous film and considered a landmark of 1960s Soviet cinema. A restored 3-hour version was released in 1989, and is sometimes referred to by the original title. The restored 1988 version is considered by Khutsiev as the most authentic version of the film.

The film follows the recently demobilized Sergei, a young man who returns to his Moscow neighborhood after two years of military service. We see the aspirations and realities of his tightly knit group of friends, as well as the everyday lives of other Soviet citizens.

"This is, of course, a deeply personal picture,” Khutsiev notes. “I even used to say that the three main characters were all me. One of them stood for my inner turmoil and doubts; the second one, for my family situation at the time; and finally, the third one was the person I aspired to be.”

Arguably the most seminal Soviet film of the 60s, Ilyich's Gate is an encyclopedia of life in Moscow during the era: a meticulous inventory of hopes, illusions and disappointments. One generation older than his characters, Khutsiev co-wrote the script with twenty-two-year-old VGIK student Gennady Shpalikov in order to authentically craft an indispensable time capsule with iconic scenes such as the party with Andrei Tarkovsky and Andrei Konchalovsky among the guests, the Labor Day demonstration, and the poetry reading at a museum featuring the most famed writers of the time (the latter sequence fell prey to censorship when a re-cut version came out under the title I Am Twenty). Having lost his father in 1937 to Stalinist purges, Khutsiev would continually return to this search for the lost father, a motif that spoke to both generations orphaned by war.

Cast & Characters:
Valentin Popov as Sergey Zhuravlyov (as V. Popov)
Nikolay Gubenko as Nikolay 'Kolya' Fokin (as N. Gubenko)
Stanislav Lyubshin as Slava Kostikov (as S. Lyubshin)
Marianna Vertinskaya as Anya (as M. Vertinskaya)
Zinaida Zinoveva as Olga Mikhaylovna Zhuravlyova (as Z. Zinovyeva)
Svetlana Starikova as Vera Zhuravlyova (as S. Starikova)
Lev Prygunov as Aleksandr Zhuravlyov (as L. Prygunov)
Tatiana Bogdanova as Lyusya Kostikova (as T. Bogdanova)
Lyudmila Selyanskaya as Katya Yermakova, conductress (as L. Selyanskaya)
Aleksandr Blinov as Kuzmich (as Sasha Blinov)