NAITRE SVETLANA STALINE

A documentary by Gabriel Tejedor

With the support of Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), Cinéforom et l’OFC

1967, in the middle of the Cold War, Joseph Stalin’s only daughter, Svetlana, goes to the American embassy in New-Dehli and asks for asylum. She leaves behind her country and her two children. In the East as in the West, the shock is immense. Geopolitically, the case is ultra-sensitive: in panic, US President Lyndon Johnson hides her in French-speaking Switzerland, where she will stay with nuns. Chased by the press, the KGB and many admirers, Svetlana will never stop fleeing throughout her life. From the top of the Soviet empire to the solitude and poverty of her last years in a Wisconsin home, the film traces the destiny of this resolutely free woman, a grain of sand in the state machinery of both blocs.

Stills

Credits

Director : Gabriel Tejedor
Images : Thomas Szczepanski, Laurent Stoop
Editor : Maya Schmid Traore
Sound editor and sound mixer : Vuk Vukmanovic
Color grading and postprodution : Franck Ravel / Charbon Studio
Animations : Studio Baguette Magique, Marc Trompetter, Elisa Gómez Alvarez, Timo Kreitz
Original music : Julien Painot
Production : Juliana Fanjul, Palmyre Badinier (Akka Films)