"Our movie heroes":
Evgenia Simonova told the audience about the creation of the legendary film "Only" old people go to battle

As part of the “Night at the Museum” campaign, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation Evgenia Simonova talked to the audience of the Our Movie Heroes exhibition located at the main entrance to Sokolniki Park (Moscow).

The guests of the “Night at the Museum” action were welcomed by the Executive Director of the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO) Vladislav Kononov and the director of the Sokolniki park Andrei Lapshin.

- We presented the exhibition Our Movie Heroes here in Sokolniki Park for two weeks. Moreover, the exhibition was created for the regions - for small cities where there are currently no movie theaters. And very soon this exhibition will go on an annual tour of Russia within the framework of the Year of Russian Cinema, ”said Vladislav Kononov

At the beginning of the meeting, the scientific director of RVIO Mikhail Myagkov conducted a survey tour of the exhibition for Evgenia Simonova.

- This is a great initiative. The exhibition features so many photos, so much information and so many wonderful actors! You can recall the films that make up the Golden Fund of domestic cinema, the actress said.

Communicating with the guests of the exhibition, Yevgenia Simonova told how the film “Only Old Men Go to Battle” was created.

- The film is 43 years old, it was shot in 1973. A wonderful director Leonid Fedorovich Bykov shot it. This was my very first picture. At that time, I was in my second year at the Shchukin Theater School. We have an amazing international acting company. There were guys from Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Georgia. An amazing atmosphere of love and friendship reigned. Despite the fact that the picture was “military” - on a serious topic - Leonid Bykov knew how to unite everyone around him so that everyone took part in the process with joy.

With special warmth in her voice, the actress recalls the day of the premiere of the film.

- The film premiered in Kiev, we were all dressed in military uniforms. There were veteran pilots in the hall, and at the display of the painting they cried. Then they came to us - young actors (and many of us were still studying), and they had tearful eyes. That was incredible! Because these people, who went through all the horrors of war, did not remain indifferent to the picture.

I must say that for the film 43 years is a probationary period. This film has stood the test of time; it is still shown every year on Victory Day. And I know young people who watch this film, and they convey the very love for the motherland, for the cinema, for the actors that Leonid Fedorovich Bykov put into the picture, said Yevgeny Simonova.

At the end of the evening, the guests of the exhibition “Our movie heroes” were expected by a program of songs from the war years performed by the military-industrial complex “Division” and the screening of the film “Only Old Men Go into Battle”.

Reference:

The exhibition of the Russian military-historical society “Our movie heroes” is a symbiosis of the museum of history and the cinema. In addition to shots from your favorite films, samples of uniforms and weapons from the Great Patriotic War are presented here, as well as a screen projector for broadcasting films both inside the “hall” and outside - in the version of the summer cinema.