Led by Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the Cossack army took the town of Zbarazh under tight siege. The Polish gentry, under the leadership of the fierce enemy of Ukraine, Yarema Vishnevetsky, found themselves in a trap: food supplies ran out, famine and disease began; Yarema sent dozens of messengers to the Polish king with pleas for military assistance, but not one of them was able to break through the Cossack siege. It would seem that soon the Zaporozhye Cossacks would celebrate the final victory, but the unexpected happened - the alliance with the Crimean Khan Islam-Girey turned out to be a betrayal for Khmelnitsky: amidst a fierce battle, the horde left the battlefield. Bogdan Khmelnytsky faced a difficult choice - to win a costly victory over Poland, drowning Ukraine in blood, or to agree to humiliating and extremely unfavorable terms of a peace agreement.
Such a plot is revealed to the viewer by a 2006 Ukrainian feature film about the historical events of the Khmelnytsky region, filmed by the Kyiv Film Studio named after Alexander Dovzhenko, commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine. The film premiered on May 8, 2008. The director of the project was the famous Ukrainian artist Nikolai Mashchenko, who directed a historical film about the victory of the Ukrainian army over the Polish one. The artist, who is certainly passionate about his hero while creating him, wrote a script about Bogdan Khmelnitsky, designed for 24 episodes. According to the director himself, this epic film took 7 years to come. Initially, the series was filmed and one episode, “Zbarazh,” which was filmed, was shown at the Molodist IFF in the fall of 2002. However, the director had to abandon filming the series due to lack of funding. Thus, a one-part film was put together.
Film crew:
Script writers: Andrey Yaremchuk, Nikolay Mashchenko;
Stage director: Nikolay Mashchenko;
Director of photography: Sergey Bordenyuk;
Production designer: Vitaly Yasko;
Composer: Mikhail Chemberzhi;
National Honored Academic Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, conductor: Vladimir Sirenko;
The film uses the music of John Dowland "Galliard's Pavanne" and Michael Pretorius' "Courante" performed by the early music ensemble "Silva Rerum" of the Kyiv Teacher's House (artistic director - Tatiana Tregub).
Actors:
Vladimir Abazopulo - Bogdan-Zinovy Khmelnytsky, hetman of Ukraine;
Denis Kokarev - Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, Tsar of Moscow;
Sergei Dzhigurda - Jan Casimir, King of Poland;
Bilyal Bilyalov - Islam Girey III, Khan of Crimea;
Victor Kruchina - Yarema Vishnevetsky, prince, Polish commander;
Nikolai Boklan - Danilo Nechai, colonel;
Vitaly Rastalny - crown hetman Stanislav Pototsky;
Liliya Kuznetsova;
Anatoly Chumachenko;
Irma Vitovskaya;
Taras Denisenko - Stanislav Morozenko, colonel;
Mikhail Konechny;
Ostap Stupka - Timosh Khmelnytsky, son of the hetman;
Elena Stogniy - Anna Zolotarenko, the hetman's first wife;
Marina Yagodkina - Motrona Chaplinskaya, the hetman's second wife;
Valery Sheptekita;
Alexey Vertinsky - Cossack colonel;
Georgy Khostikoev;
Georgy Morozyuk - Cossack colonel;
Sergey Romanyuk and others...
The film went through a thorny path of creation, so we hope that you will appreciate it, because Mashchenko is called the last romantic. In each of his films, the film director pays great attention to working with actors, costumes, makeup, even intonations, gestures, and this applies not only to the leading actors, but also to the extras.
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