«The Sparrow» is a film directed by Yuri Shiller, a famous Russian documentary filmmaker, for whom this work was his debut in feature films.
The film takes place in the village of Vasilyevka, where, according to legend, a herd of horses mysteriously appeared many years ago. Since then, the herd, famous all over the region, has been guarded by all the villagers; he was saved even in times of war. But when, already today, a crop failure occurred in the village and the director of the farm had a question — how to pay people a salary and at the same time repay a bank loan taken a year ago - he decides to send the herd to the slaughterhouse. The whole village stands up to protect horses, but economic feasibility is more important than other arguments. The only protector of the herd is the little son of the shepherd Mitya Vorobyov, nicknamed Sparrow.
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Yuri Andreevich Schiller
Born on August 13, 1942 in the city of Okha, Sakhalin Oblast. He graduated from the directing department of VGIK (1970, workshop of G. Chukhrai). In 1972 he made his debut as a director of the feature film The Unusual Day.
Since 1975 — director of the studio "Novosibirsk Telefilm", then the West Siberian Newsreel Studio. Director of more than fifty documentaries and popular science films. Laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation (1998). Multiple winner of Russian and international film festivals. He lived and worked in Novosibirsk. In 2010, he shot the full-length feature film "Sparrow" the only Russian film put forward at the XXXI Moscow International Film Festival.
Films of Yuri Schiller are stored in the library of the US Congress, in Moscow in the archive of the state radio and television station on Shabolovka, in the archives of the State Film Fund of the Russian Federation “White Pillars”, in the Novosibirsk State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, they are taught at them at VGIK. They are classics of domestic and world documentary films, went down in history.
He died on March 17, 2019.