# The Thaw (2013)

> In 1961 Moscow, a suspected cameraman races to film a comedy so he can make his dead screenwriter friend's script.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/56324

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 12
- Episode runtime: 55 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, history
- Created by: Valery Todorovsky
- Network: Channel One
- Cast: Evgeny Tsyganov, Aleksandr Yatsenko, Anna Chipovskaya, Viktoriya Isakova, Mikhail Efremov, Yana Sekste, Pavel Derevyanko, Svetlana Kolpakova
- TMDB rating: 7.7/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3398314/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: mild
- Tone: melancholic, wistful, sardonic, tense, nostalgic

## Synopsis

The Thaw (2013) is a Russian historical drama miniseries created by Valery Todorovsky and broadcast on Channel One. Set in 1961 Moscow during the brief cultural loosening of the Khrushchev era, it follows cameraman Viktor Khrustalyov (Evgeny Tsyganov), who is under suspicion after the suicide of his friend, the screenwriter Kostya Parshin. Viktor needs to shoot a light comedy so that he can win permission to make Parshin's striking screenplay, and he does this under the watch of a state eager to imprison him. Young director Yegor Myachin (Aleksandr Yatsenko) joins the production as a trainee to the veteran director Krivitsky, and the set becomes a tangle of rivalry and romance, with Viktor's ex-wife Inga and the young Maryana (Anna Chipovskaya), whom Yegor also loves, both on hand. Across twelve hour-long episodes the story is a single continuing thread built on the pressure of surveillance, the compromises of art, and the friendships that fracture under fear. Its tone is wistful, sardonic and melancholic, with a warm nostalgia for the film world and a constant undercurrent of dread. Fans of Chernobyl, Bridge of Spies and Mad Men will find resonance in its portrait of ordinary people navigating a repressive state.

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