''Despite the Falling Snow'' is a 2016 British Cold War

espionage film The spy film, also known as the spy thriller, is a genre of film that deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way (such as the adaptations of John le Carré) or as a basis for fantasy (such as many James Bond films) ...

directed by Shamim Sarif, adapted from her novel of the same name. Starring

Rebecca Ferguson Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström (born 19 October 1983) is a Swedish actress. She began her acting career with the Swedish soap opera ''Nya tider'' (1999–2000) and went on to star in the slasher film ''Drowning Ghost'' (2004). She came to in ...

, Sam Reid,

Charles Dance Walter Charles Dance (born 10 October 1946) is an English actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters and villains. His most notable film roles include Sardo Numspa in '' The Golden Child'' (1986), Dr. Jonathan Clemens in '' ...

, Antje Traue,

Oliver Jackson-Cohen Oliver Mansour Jackson-Cohen (born 24 October 1986) is an English actor and model. He is best known for his role as Adrian Griffin in the 2020 adaptation of ''The Invisible Man'' and for his roles as Luke Crain and Peter Quint in the Netflix ...

Thure Lindhardt Thure Frank Lindhardt (; born 24 December 1974) is a Danish actor, educated at the drama school at Odense Theatre in 1998. Life and career Lindhardt was born in Copenhagen, and grew up in Roskilde. At the age of 12, he got a part in Bille Augu ...

and

Anthony Head Anthony Stewart Head (born 20 February 1954) is an English actor and singer. Primarily a performer in musical theatre, he rose to fame in the UK in the 1980s following his role in the Gold Blend couple television advertisements for Nescafé, w ...

, the film was released in the United Kingdom on 15 April 2016.

Plot

The film is set in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union. A young Soviet woman, Katya, lost her parents during the Stalinist repressions. Though she pretends to be a communist, she hates the regime and spies for the Americans. Her friend Misha, who is a spy, also helps her obtain important information for the Americans. As part of her next assignment, she meets the young and good-looking Sasha, who belongs to the Kremlin elite. In order to spy on him, Katya ends up marrying Sasha but not everything is going to the plan. Katya soon falls in love with Sasha, and plans to defect to the United States with him. However, just before her trip to the US, Katya mysteriously vanishes. Sasha stays in America alone, and over the course of 30 years becomes a successful businessman in America. Many years afterwards, he visits a post-communist Russia seeking to solve Katya's disappearance. He and his niece Lauren work together, searching for clues. They then meet Misha, who has become an old alcoholic; he tells them what really happened to Katya.

Cast

as Katya Grinkova / Lauren Grinkova * Sam Reid as Alexander "Sasha" Ivanov (young) *

as Alexander "Sasha" Ivanov (older) * Antje Traue as Marina Rinskaya *

as Mikhail "Misha" Ardonov (young) *

as Dmitri Rinsky * Miloš Timotijević as First Man *

as Mikhail "Misha" Ardonov (older)

Production

The film was shot in

Belgrade, Serbia Belgrade ( , ;, ; names in other languages) is the capital and largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 mill ...

. The score by

Rachel Portman Rachel Mary Berkeley Portman,
FilmReference.com City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech: ''Filharmonici města Prahy'') is a classical orchestra, predominantly composed of Czech classical, jazz and guest musicians. The history of the orchestra goes back to the Film Symphony Orchestr ...

Reception

On the review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds a 9% approval rating based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 4.1/10. The website's consensus reads, "''Despite the Falling Snow''s slick production and appealing cast struggle to elevate a feeble script, resulting in a Cold War thriller that never raises the temperature." The film won three awards at the 2016

Prague Independent Film Festival Prague Independent Film Festival (PIFF) is an international film festival held annually in August in Prague, the capital of Czech Republic. The festival focuses on independent cinema. Festival founder and director is Diana Ringo. History 2016 ...

including Best Feature Film, Best Actress (

) and Best Supporting Actor (

References

External links

* * * {{Rotten Tomatoes, despite_the_falling_snow, Despite The Falling Snow 2016 films British independent films 2010s mystery thriller films British mystery films British spy films British romantic drama films Cold War spy films Films directed by Shamim Sarif Films scored by Rachel Portman Films shot in Belgrade 2010s English-language films 2010s British films English-language mystery thriller films