KRAVCHENKO

Cold war in Paris

  • Coproduction

    with the participation of
    Histoire
    and of
    Rue des Archives
    and of
    Centre National de la Cinématographie

    and the support of
    Procirep – Société des producteurs
    Angoa

  • Broadcaster

    ARTE

Synopsis

Paris, January 1949. Soviet defector Victor Kravchenko’s libel suit against the French communist weekly “Les Lettres françaises” became the “trial of the century”. In a courtroom packed with journalists, Kravchenko called on witnesses who spoke for the first time about the famine in Ukraine, the purges, and, 15 years before Solzhenitsyn, the hell of the Soviet gulag. Opposite him, the Moscow-supported paper brought in witnesses and intellectuals, who in battle order, fiercely denied the evidence. What insidious mechanisms force one to remain blind to the truth ?

 

  • Available versions

    Français, anglais, russe

  • Format

    16/9

  • Support location

    Beta Num

  • Distributor

    Cinétévé

  • Technical team

    Editing : Joseph Licidé
    Camera : Jean-Louis Laforêt
    Sound : Florent Ravalec
    Original score : Robert Baccherini

  • Festival

    Selected at the FIPA 2009, Documentary category
    Selected at the 20th Pessac History Film Festival, Documentary category
  • Written by Bernard George et Emmanuel Blanchard based on "L'Affaire Kravtchenko"by Nina Berberova (Éditions Actes Sud)