Stalin's Disciples

Stalin's Disciples (Hebrew: ילדי סטאלין‎, in Hebrew Stalin's Children) is a 1986 Israeli film directed by Nadav Levitan that satirizes the utopian ideology of the Israeli kibbutz.

Stalin's Disciples (in Hebrew Stalin's Children)
Film poster
Directed byNadav Levitan
Produced byDoron Eran
Written byGadi Danzig
Nadav Levitan
StarringAharon Almog
Music byChava Alberstein
CinematographyGadi Danzig
Edited byShimon Tamir
Distributed byTal-Shahar
Release date
  • 1986 (1986)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryIsrael
LanguageHebrew

Plot

The death of Joseph Stalin in the 1950s leads to an ideological crisis on a kibbutz that identifies with communist principles. The blind faith of three elderly shoemakers, who previously abused a young boy daring to criticize Stalin, begins to disintegrate when they learn of the Soviet leader's crimes and the manifest antisemitism on display at the Prague Trials.

Cast
  • Aharon Almog
  • Ezra Dagan
  • Rahel Dobson
  • Doron Golan
  • Yossi Kantz
  • David Rona
  • Shmuel Shiloh
  • Hugo Yarden

Critical reception

The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.[1] Although it was both a critical and commercial failure, it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and was the first Israeli feature to participate in the Moscow and Warsaw Film Festivals.[2]

Yehuda (Judd) Neeman, a film researcher and director, has said that Stalin's Disciples (actually in Hebrew Stalin's Children) was "the first film to look ironically at Stalinism and the kibbutz movement. . . Nadav Levitan took characters from the actual fabric of the kibbutz he knew, including the sandal workshop with Stalin's picture on the wall, and little by little wove the pieces together. Blind worship for Stalin and unshaken belief in the Soviet Union was disintegrating on the kibbutz, partly triggered by 1952 Prague arrest and confession under torture of spying for British intelligence against Communist states by far left Hashomer Hatzair and Mapam functionary Mordechai Oren of Kibbutz Mizra.

At the end of the film there is the charming moment when one of the heroes looks at the sky, doesn't believe that this era has ended, looks at the moon and instead of seeing the crescent, sees the hammer and sickle. In my eyes, this is a brilliant cinematic touch and also a statement of political film, which was at its peak here in those days."[3]

References
  1. "Festival de Cannes: Stalin's Disciples". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 31 July 2009.
  2. Judd Ne'eman, "Israeli Cinema," in Oliver Leaman, ed., Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film (Routledge, 2001), p. 319.
  3. Quoted in Nirit Anderman (12 January 2010), "Nadav Levitan, 1945-2010", Haaretz (accessed 10 November 2012).
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