''One Man Dies a Million Times'' is a 2019 Russian-language drama film with science-fiction elements directed by American filmmaker Jessica Oreck that premiered at the 2019

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

Film Festival.

Plot

''One Man Dies a Million Times'' transposes to the near future the true story of the world's first seed bank, the N. I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Genetic Resources, during the

Siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad (russian: links=no, translit=Blokada Leningrada, Блокада Ленинграда; german: links=no, Leningrader Blockade; ) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the Soviet city of L ...

, during which scientists preserved a massive inventory of edible seeds in the name of biodiversity while facing starvation.

Development

The film includes narration taken from writings by prominent figures who endured the siege of Leningrad, including

Anna Akhmatova Anna Andreyevna Gorenko rus, А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко, p=ˈanːə ɐnˈdrʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡɐˈrʲɛnkə, a=Anna Andreyevna Gorenko.ru.oga, links=yes; uk, А́нна Андрі́ївна Горе́нко, Ánna Andríyivn ...

Olga Berggolts Olga Fyodorovna Bergholz ( rus, Ольга Фёдоровна Берггольц, p=ˈolʲɡə ˈfʲɵdərəvnə bʲɪrˈɡolʲts, a=Ol'ga Fyodorovna Byerghol'cz.ru.vorb.oga; – November 13, 1975) was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, playwri ...

, and

Lydia Ginzburg Lidiya Yakovlevna Ginzburg (russian: Ли́дия Я́ковлевна Ги́нзбург; March 18, 1902, Odessa, Russian Empire – July 17, 1990, Leningrad, USSR) was a major Soviet literary critic and historian and a survivor of the siege of L ...

. It is shot by cinematographer

Sean Price Williams Sean Price Williams is an American cinematographer. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, he is based in New York. Career Williams is known for his textured, fluid camerawork (often handheld) and a heightened attention to available light. The ''New York ...

in a primarily black-and-white style reminiscent of Tarkovsky. Oreck decided that this film would only be released in theaters, with no home-video release or sales to streaming services to honor the risks taken by the real-life on-screen subjects. After a planned May 2020 opening delayed due to COVID, the film began its theatrical release on July 29, 2022, at

IFC Center IFC Center is an art house movie theater in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. Located at 323 Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) at West 3rd Street, it was formerly the Waverly Theater, an art house movie theater. IFC Center is ...

in New York City.

References

External links

* * * American science fiction drama films Russian science fiction drama films {{2010s-US-film-stub