Panfilov's 28 Men
Short description
In the autumn of 1941, German forces are pushing toward Moscow, and only a few hours of highway separate the capital from the advancing troops. Standing in their path is the 316th Rifle Division under General Ivan Panfilov, whose soldiers call themselves Panfilovtsy after their commander. In freezing conditions, twenty-eight men of the division's Fourth Company hold a trench line against a column of tanks and infantry, lightly equipped and cut off from support. The film follows their stand over several days as they try to slow the enemy's approach to the city.
Directed by Kim Druzhinin and Andrey Shalyopa, Panfilov's 28 Men was released in 2016 and runs 105 minutes. It draws on the account published by correspondent Vasiliy Koroteev in the Red Army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, which shaped how the episode became known. The cast includes Azamat Nigmanov, Aleksey Morozov, Yakiv Kucherevskyi, Oleg Fyodorov, Aleksej Longin and Dmitriy Girev. It is the first feature credited to both directors, followed in their filmography by Litvyak.
Audience response has been moderately positive: on IMDb the film holds a rating of 6.7 from about 6,600 votes, and on TMDB it stands at 6.8 from roughly 186 votes. The smaller TMDB sample points to a similar level of approval among those who have logged it.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, funding for the film was raised through crowdfunding, ultimately collecting 34,746,062 rubles. Subsequently, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Culture of Kazakhstan joined the film's financing. Gaijin Entertainment provided financial, organizational, and technical support at various stages of film production.
- The film was released in two versions during its premiere (in Russian and Kazakh).
- Artyom Kokin, head of the Leningrad-900 military history club, served as a military consultant.
- Filming began on October 4, 2013, in the pavilions at Lenfilm. The main part of the filming took place in the winter of 2014/15, with winter scenes shot near Saint Petersburg and in Ivanovo.
- The film was expected to receive state aid from Kazakhstan in the amount of $1 million. However, in January 2015, the Minister of Culture and Sports of Kazakhstan, Arystanbek Mukhamediuly, stated that the script did not meet the ministry's requirements and no cooperation would take place until the script was revised according to the ministry's instructions (according to media reports in Kazakhstan, one of the requirements was to include dialogue in the Kazakh language in the film). Subsequently, funds from Kazakhstan did arrive in the amount of 80 million tenge (approximately $287,000), and minor changes were made to the script. A quote from Baurzhan Momyshuly, a participant in the Battle of Moscow and a Kazakh writer, was placed at the beginning of the film, and a monument to the Panfilov Guardsmen in Almaty is shown in the end credits. The minister of culture explained the reduction in the amount compared to the originally stated sum as due to recent economic difficulties. He also reported technical assistance to the project and help in organizing extras.
- For the filming of the first scenes, the director of the Karelian Isthmus Military Museum, Bair Irincheev, donated props and uniforms of Red Army soldiers free of charge. The Military Technical Museum in Chernogolovka also provided assistance with props.
- The film premiered on the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Dubosekovo, on November 16th in the city of Volokolamsk, where the events depicted in the film unfolded.
- The film featured both professional actors and amateur volunteers.
- Due to the specifics of the crowdfunding budget, casting took a long time. The first actor to be confirmed was Yakov Kucherevsky, who played Sergeant Dobrobabin – he agreed to participate two years before filming. Alexei Morozov, for the role of Political Officer Klochkov, was the last to be confirmed – one day before the start of filming.
- The Panfilov Division was formed in the Kazakh SSR, and the company included many Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, so a large number of actors of Eastern appearance were needed for the extras. Andrey Shalyopa’s team contacted national diasporas in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Ivanovo. In total, the team consisted of 360 people, and up to 700 people were involved in the project overall.
- Almost all the tanks featured in the film are 1:16 scale models. A full-size tank interior model was built for filming inside the tanks. In addition, a full-size model of an entire tank was also constructed.
- To enhance the realism of the tank models' movement, they were filmed at four times the speed, and the resulting footage was then slowed down. The camera was mounted on a robotic arm made by the German company KUKA.
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