Victor Rozov's heritage exceeds twenty plays. Many of them have been on the Russian stage for years. Several have screen versions. The best known of these, "The Cranes Are Flying" (Mikhail Kalatozov, director), bases on the play, "Eternally Alive".
The film was premiered in its home country 47 years ago, October 12, 1957. It won Gold Palm at the 11th Cannes festival, the All-Union Cinema Federation prize at the international Moscow film festival of 1958, and honourable awards at the Locarno, Vancouver and Mexico City festivals the same year. It was the only Soviet film ever to lead French cinema attendance.
"The Kalatozov melodrama about a girl whose beloved never came back from war was chief inspiration for the generation that is fifty now," says Sergei Solovyev, major Russian film director.
"The Cranes Are Flying" stays unsurpassed to this day as Russian spiritual landmark, and for the crew's excellence. The cast was superb, especially the stars-Tatiana Samoilova and Alexei Batalov. The same can be said about Sergei Urusevsky, camera, and Mikhail Kalatozov, director.
"Victor Rozov expressed all the intricacies of his time in his plays. He did what another superstar of the Russian drama-Alexander Ostrovsky-did in the 19th century," Oleg Tabakov, top-notch actor and stage director, said to Novosti. "Rozov's plays offer a chronicle of Russian life and a gallery of Russian people. My entire life on stage, and my first endeavours-not mine alone-were destined to have close links with that remarkable author. Victor Rozov was giving three generations of Russian actors their bread of life for fifty years on end. We are greatly indebted to him, and his memory is eternal."
