JIFF 2018: Finding Babel

The Story

"Invigorating… Finding Babel honors with intelligence and plenty of feeling." — Los Angeles Times

Isaac Babel's writings are subversive masterpieces, challenging the ideology of the early Soviet Union, and resulting in his arrest and execution in 1940. On the 75th anniversary of Isaac Babel's execution, Finding Babel follows Andrei Malaev-Babel, his grandson, on a journey to better understand Babel's powerful artistic method and elusive persona. Andrei travels through Ukraine, France and Russia; locations deeply tied to the story of his grandfather, and confronts lingering traces of a turbulent history that echo in Babel's writing and in the conflicts and climate of today's Ukraine and Russia. Narrated by Liev Schreiber.

Rating

CTC

Country

US

Language

English, Russian

Cast

Liev Schreiber, Marina Vlady, Stéphanie Campion, David Coburn

Director

David Novak