According to the story of the same name by Pavel Nilin. At 20, Tonya gave birth to a daughter — alone, without a husband. At 30 — personal happiness became an unattainable dream. She devoted herself to her beloved daughter. But at the age of 40, life seemed to make a circle and return to its starting point. There is nothing left to lose — which means you can take a chance, start all over again. Mom is married for the first time, and it’s hard for a selfish daughter to put up with this...
Acting
Glushenko's face doing ten years of unlived life in one glance.
Direction
Kheifits lets silences scream where lesser directors would add screaming.
Production
Cramped Soviet apartments as emotional prisons—then liberated spaces.
Director
Iosif Kheifits
Evgeniya Glushenko
Tonya
Nikolai Volkov Ml.
Yefim Yemelyanovich
Valentina Telichkina
Galya
Svetlana Smirnova
Tamara
Igor Starygin
Valeriy
Nadezhda Klimentovich
Tamara in childhood
Fyodor Balakirev
Vorozheikin
Galina Volkova
Zoya
Tatyana Golysheva-Marenko
Tonya's friend
Sergei Ivanov
Yuri Gvozdetsky
Nikolay Karamyshev
Valeriy's father
Nadezhda Karpechenko
Tonya's friend
Nina Mamayeva
Lukerya Petrovna
Aleksejs Mihailovs
dorm commandant
Nikolai Muravyov
Aleksei
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Nilin's story captured a specific Soviet phenomenon: the 'single mother by circumstance' whose chance at love expired alongside state-sanctioned gender equality.
Glushenko was 34 playing 40—Hollywood would have cast a 50-year-old and called it brave.
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