TV saga to challenge Russians over life under Stalin

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2004

MOSCOW (AFP) — For filmmaker Dmitry Barshevsky, a clear sign that Russia may be on the road to democracy is the fact that television channels are competing for the right to air his "Moscow Saga", a 24-part serial on the Stalinist era, in prime time.

The serial, currently in post-production, is a vast, sprawling panorama portraying three decades of Soviet history which, in the director's view, delineates the evils of Joseph Stalin's blood-stained rule with a frankness that has never been seen on screen before.

Based on Vasily Aksyonov's novel of the same name, "Moscow Saga" deals unflinchingly not only with the horrors that Stalin and his regime visited on the peoples of the Soviet Union but also on the responsibility of the people themselves, Barshevsky told AFP....