TALE OF A TOY (1984)

Made to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Soviet victory over the Germans. The film won second prize at the XXII Leipzig Festival of Films for Children. In a German concentration camp Russian prisoners fashion a Don Quixote doll from a bit of metal. It becomes their symbol of hope. The lyrical film is bracketed with references to the Spanish Civil War, which led to decades of authoritarian rule by Generalissimo Franco, and the 1973 coup d'etat in Chile which toppled the socialist, pro-Soviet regime of Salvadore Allende. ('Clear skies' was the codeword which launched Francos 1936 coup, supported by the fascist governments of Italy and Germany and opposed by the USSR and France).