Within the Whirlwind

Within the Whirlwind

The world of Evgenia Ginzburg, a literature professor, begins to close in around her as colleagues and even her own husband succumb to the madness of Stalin's reign of terror. Because of her refusal to falsely admit her own guilt, she is accused of terrorism and sent to 10 years hard labor in a gulag in Siberia. Halfway through her sentence, having lost everything, and no longer wishing to live, she meets the camp doctor and slowly begins to come back to life. 

A gripping drama based on the true story of poetess Evgenia Ginzburg, starring Emily Watson (two Academy Award® nominations, "Breaking the Waves") and Ulrich Tukur ("The Lives of Others"), directed by Academy Award®-winner Marleen Goris.

"Emily Watson's stunning, all-consuming perf sweeps all before it in a virtuoso interpretation of courage under fire." - Variety

Festivals: Haifa IFF, Ghent IFF, New York Jewish FF

Evgenia Ginzburg, a Russian Literature Professor at the University of Kazan, and her family live the privileged lives of Communist apparatchiks, with a large apartment, a new American car and a country dacha. Under Stalin's leadership, the Communist Party undergoes a major transformation, and little by little, all intellectuals, engineers and academics are interrogated by the secret police. Evgenia is suspected of membership in a Trotskyist organization. While enduring various sophisticated psychological tortures, she finds herself facing outrageously trumped-up charges. Unwilling to denounce anyone, she is sentenced to 10 years of hard labor. For Evgenia, it is the beginning of a long, painful journey into the Gulag camp system, where she survives only because of her faith in poetry.