Italian, The

A FILM BY Andrei Kravchuk

Full of cold truths and warm sentiment, this is a Dickensian tale set to the contemporary rhythms of post-Communist Russia.
-Jason Anderson, GLOBE & MAIL
... a strong candidate for my 2007 10-best foreign-film list ... """"
-Andrew Sarris, New York Observer
Combining the influences of Italian neorealism with Dickensian melodrama, Andrei Kravchuk's simultaneously tough-minded and sentimental The Italian is as bracing as it is moving.""""
-Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

Synopsis

Based on the true story of a small Russian boy abandoned in an orphanage who goes in search of his birth mother. A childless, affluent couple from Italy comes to a provincial Russian children's home to find a child for adoption. When the Italian couple singles out six-year-old ragamuffin Vanya Solntsev as their prospective choice, the other orphans give Vanya a new nickname: The Italian. They envy Vanya, imagining that he is destined for a life of ease in sunny Italy. But plucky little Vanya has other plans. He decides to track down his birth mother, teaching himself to read in order to learn her address from his personal file locked in the home's office. After stealing his records, Vanya sneaks out of the orphanage and boards a commuter train headed for the city, with the orphanage staff and police in close pursuit. Fearing that Vanya will make them lose a very lucrative adoption deal, the orphanage attempt to find the runaway child by any means necessary.

Original Languages: Russian
Genre: Drama, World Cinema
Running Time: 99 min.
Year: 2005

CREDITS

CAST
Denis Moiseenko
Kolya Spiridonov
DIRECTED BY
Andrei Kravchuk

PHOTOS