Babylon XX(Movie, 1979)

Babylon XX (Russian: Вавилон XX, romanized: Vavilon XX; Ukrainian: Вавілон XX, romanized: Vavilon XX) is a 1979 Soviet film directed by Ivan Mykolaichuk in his directorial debut and starring an ensemble cast including Mykolaichuk, Lyubov Polishchuk, and Les Serdyuk as peasants struggling to adapt to life within a commune led by Soviet sailor Klym Synytsia (played by Ivan Havryliuk). It is a loose film adaptation of the 1971 novel A Flock of Swans by Vasyl Zemliak, and depicts collectivization in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the transition from communism to capitalism in Ukraine. Babylon XX had a troubled production history, with both a part-time film crew and a backdrop of Soviet repressions on Ukrainian freedom of expression; Ukrainian poetic cinema, the movement to which Babylon XX belonged, was formally banned, and A Flock of Swans itself had been threatened to be banned. The film's production took two years before premiering at the 1979 Kyiv International Film Festival "Molodist" to critical acclaim, being awarded the festival's main prize. Since its releas... ()