Women of the Gulag

Women of the Gulag is a 2018 US short documentary film^[2] directed by Marianna Yarovskaya.^[3] and based on the book Women of the Gulag: Stories of Five Remarkable Lives by Paul Roderick Gregory (2013).^[4] Executive Produced by Mitchell Block and Mark Jonathan Harris, it was a Best Documentary Short shortlist nominee at the 2018 Academy Awards.^[5]

Women of the Gulag
Film poster
Directed by	Marianna Yarovskaya
Written by	Marianna Yarovskaya
Produced by	Marianna Yarovskaya Paul Roderick Gregory
Edited by	Leonard Feinstein, Irina Volkova
Music by	Mark Adler
Production company	Mayfilms[1]
Release date	October 1, 2018 (2018-10-01)
Country	United States
Language	Russian

Synopsis

A collection of unique and candid interviews with women who survived the Stalin's repression of the 1930s. The film was shot for five years, the team found its six heroines in the most diverse and remote corners of the former Soviet Union – in Ural, Far East, Sukhumi, and Moscow Oblast. Today, these women are well over eighty, but they continue to live and for each of them it was very important to tell their own story.^[6][7][8]

Critical reception

The film was shortlisted for an Academy Award in the best documentary short category. The film premiered at the 41st Moscow International Film Festival in 2018.^[9] It won festivals in Iceland,^[10] US/California, South Korea, Hong Kong, France, Canada, Croatia, and Russia. The film was screened privately for Secretary of State George Shultz. The film won two awards at the «Window to Europe» festival, Vyborg, an EBS Award in Seoul, Korea, a Critics Choice Award in Hong Kong, among others. The film’s Russian TV premiere took place in May 2021, but the film was censored.^[11]