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The year 1929. A “shock worker” from a tractor plant visits a film studio premises and is furious to see fake stage designs for a kitsch production about a Soviet life. He refuses to help the crew with his tractor, but is happy to ask one of the cameramen to go with him to visit an actual Soviet village. There they witness the birth of the kolkhoz and the dekulakization of wealthy villagers. Then they are transported to the future, to the year 1932, when the first five-year plan is done and the commune-sovkhoz is established. Movies can move faster than time, but the pace of change in Soviet society is even faster than that. In the movie, the entrance gate of the Odesa film factory, where all of the indoors scenes were shot, can be seen. The outdoors scenes were filmed all over Eastern Ukraine and Southern Russia (Kuban): at Kharkiv factories, in Ukrainian villages and in the 240 ha-sovkhoz “Gigant” in Rostov region, the latter representing the future after the five-year plan.
as Murugiy / Old man
as Hero of labour
as Detsyuk, kulak
as Montetsuk, peasant
as Bidoga, middleman
as Kolkhoz worker
as Kulak's supporter
as Priest
as Peasant woman
as Kobzar
as Old peasant woman
as Kapulenko, peasant
as Priest in prologue
as Kulak in prologue
as Kulak's daughter
as Renter
as Woman worker
as Katya
as Camera operator