THE ITALIAN (Russia, 2005)
Wednesday, 11th March 2009

Improbable as it may sound, The Italian is a film from Russia. That is also where it is located since this is a story about a boy in a Russian orphanage, a boy named Vanya who is given the nickname ‘The Italian’ by the other inmates when an Italian couple single out this six year old as the child that they would like to adopt. The tale that grows out of this is not about his adoption but, on the contrary, a gripping narrative about how Vanya escapes from the orphanage in a determined bid to find his own mother rather than accept the idea of being adopted.

In choosing this story-line for his first feature film, Andrei Kravchuk was drawing on real life. It was in 2000 that he revealed to the writer Andrei Romanov that he was contemplating making a film about destitute children such as he had seen on the streets in Russia, children who would sell newspapers or wash cars to get by. Romanov then told Kravchuk of an article he had read and which told of a boy from a children’s home who had taught himself to read and write and had subsequently run away to find his mother. Out of this discussion between the two of them, the idea for The Italian was born.

Two statements made by the director are of particular interest, but for different reasons. The first, giving an insight into his approach to the filming is this: “Working with children was difficult but very interesting. We had to find a special way to communicate with them as most of them were real orphanage wards. It was important to explain to the children that our work was really serious and to treat them with the respect of adult actors. They responded well to this giving us their best.” The other statement is one that suggests that, despite the impact that the film has as the story of one individual boy, Kravchuk intended it to be read on a broader basis. “This is also a film about a country in travail. If we have little “heroes” like Vanya who are capable of performing such outstanding deeds, we can talk of and hope for a better future in Russia. I strongly hope that the universal themes in The Italian will be understood not only by the Russian people but also by foreign audiences.”

Whatever wider implications one may see in this film, there’s no doubt that it works well as a narrative that draws in the audience and makes them care about the fate of the central character. There’s something immediately compelling about the location shooting in colour when in the opening shots we witness a wintry scene in the Russian provinces. This shows the arrival of an Italian couple at the home to inspect some of the children with adoption in mind. The head of the establishment (Yuri Itskov) is hand in glove with a woman, a broker of the adoption set-up who is always referred to as ‘Madame’ (Maria Kuznetsova). The two of them are convinced that all is working out well when the visitors respond so positively to Vanya when he is produced for inspection.

Before commenting further on the story-line two points should be made. First, the film’s factual background is in part a response to the well-known fact that in recent times there has been wide-spread profiteering in Russia based on setting up illegal adoptions. Consequently a partnership such as that between the head of the home and ‘Madame’ who organizes this side of the business and has her own driver in Grisha (Nikolai Reutov) is very much taken from life. The second point is to stress that the film has a wonderfully persuasive centre in the performance of the child actor Kolya Spiridonov who takes the key role of Vanya. At the time of filming he was actually nine or ten but could pass for a six year old and his performance is splendidly apt never being cute or too knowing. The other young players involved also manage to be very convincing, but they are not called on to display the emotional range that is required from young Kolya and which he carries off so admirably.

The first half of The Italian sets up the story as already described and gives us a portrait of life in the home where Kolya makes a friend of another inmate, Anton (Dima Zemlyanko). Intriguingly, we see how the way in which the home is run does not prevent some of the older children from setting up a life-style of their own. With the boiler room as their headquarters, they exercise their own control over the other children, their leader Kolyan (Denis Moiseenko) overseeing dealings in the nearby town and organizing thefts. Despite the contemporary setting, some aspects of this bring to mind Fagin’s gang in Oliver Twist and Kravchuk is, in fact, an admirer of the novels of Charles Dickens. One girl very much caught up in all this is Irka (Olga Shuvalova) who doubtless lives up to her nickname ‘Hooker’, but she is in fact kindly and it is she who teaches Vanya to read. It is only through this that Vanya is able to understand the information contained in a file on him which carries details that persuade him that he might be able to trace his mother. To add to the likelihood of his adopting such a plan, we have already seen how against the odds the mother of one child had found her way to the orphanage only to learn that her child had been adopted and was no longer there. It’s that event that makes Vanya determined to turn his back on adoption and to seek out his own mother and the second half of the film’s increasingly taut narrative shows Vanya getting away from the orphanage to pursue his quest but with ‘Madame’ and the director of the orphanage in hot pursuit so as not to lose out on the adoption that they have set up.

Kravchuk who was born in 1962 set out to be a mathematician but became involved in cinema and felt an inner compulsion to change direction. Prior to 2005, his career had been largely in television as a maker of documentaries but he is now working on his second feature film for the cinema. In taking this new direction, he has demonstrated in The Italian just how skilled he is for, in addition to making decisions that have helped to achieve the film’s desired effect (the casting of Kolya Spiridonov, the use of an actual orphanage to add to the sense of authenticity), Kravchuk has created a film that eschews sentimentality and is marked by its humanity. In an interview he mentioned that he is a great admirer of Vittorio De Sica’s film Bicycle Thieves and to learn that after seeing The Italian comes as no surprise.


Winner of the Grand Prix for Best Feature at the
2005 Berlin International Children’s Film Festival.

“Finely crafted… gripping… sensitive to the hilt” – Time Out.

“Unsentimental and vividly characterised “ – Tom Dawson, Film 4.

“**** Superbly written, impressively directed and extremely moving drama “
- Matthew Turner, The ViewLondon Review.

“An observant and authentic picture of life in the contemporary Russian provinces.
Engrossing with a satisfyingly poignant resolution” – Sight & Sound.



Programme Note by Mansel Stimpson.