Battle for Sevastopol
Short description
This war drama follows Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a university student who joins the army after the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. She becomes a highly skilled sniper, fighting in the defense of Odessa and Sevastopol. While she gains fame for her precision and high number of confirmed kills, she becomes a target for enemy forces. The story traces her journey from the front lines to the United States, where she meets Eleanor Roosevelt and speaks at the White House to gain American support for the war effort, all while dealing with the personal toll of conflict and the fear of losing her loved ones.
The film was directed by Sergey Mokritsky, marking the first in a sequence of his works that includes A Rough Draft and Guantanamera. Yulia Peresild stars as Pavlichenko, alongside Yevgeni Tsyganov, Joan Blackham, and a credited cast of 50. Produced by companies including the Cinema Fund and the Ukrainian State Film Agency, the movie had a budget of 5 million USD. Audience reception has been generally positive, with a rating of 7/10 on IMDb based on 15,000 votes and a score of 7.3/10 on TMDB from 516 votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- Work on the film began in 2012, and filming took place from the end of 2013 to June 2014 in Kyiv, Odessa, Kamianets-Podilskyi, and Sevastopol.
- At the very end of the film, they show Lyudmila Pavlichenko with her son and Eleanor Roosevelt in 1957. In the film, the boy appears to be around 15 years old, but in reality, Lyudmila's son was 25 years old in 1957.
- The film depicts Pavlichenko's life from 1937 to 1942, and Lyudmila is shown as unmarried. In reality, Pavlichenko married in 1932, and her son was born then as well.
- At the shooting range, when the range officer is distributing cartridges, it is visible that the cartridges are training rounds, with a primed cap.
- Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko wrote the autobiographical book 'Heroic Saga: The Defense of Sevastopol 1941–1942'.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
