BY THE NAME OF BARON

Russia, 2002

ASDS Film, on order of NTV

TV novel/Biographical drama, 12 parts

This is the story of Iosif, a poor boy from a small-town Jewish community: his miserable childhood, his love for his father the failure; the story of his whole life built up as an attempt to assert himself and take revenge on the destiny. This is the story of a man who renounced his nationality, gave up his real name and trampled on his own soul. He ran away from home with a gypsy caravan and took the name of Baron. Cynicism, cruelty and strong will help him to survive in a prison camp and get to the top of the criminal world: he becomes a powerful Moscow mobster, Godfather of a criminal clan.

Yet, omnipotent like Croesus, Baron has no power over his memory, where little Iosif is still living, the boy who wanted just to play the violin…

Wealth and power have not made him happy. Baron is old, he is tired of envy and betrayals, the feeling of guilt, the ghosts of the past torturing him in his endless visions, burdensome life without love, and awareness that not only himself but all of his kin as well are doomed…

The series «By the Name of Baron», being a classical gangster saga, is at the same time a biographical drama and an epic cinema novel. The setting will change over from a modern megapolis to a godforsaken place in the Ukraine of the 40’s and from luxurious banquet halls to the miserable huts of a Jewish ghetto; sunny Mediterranean beaches will be replaced by the grim torture-chambers of NKVD, and a sleeping car compartment – by bloody shoot-outs in the streets of Moscow…

***

It had taken director Dmitry Svtozarov 10 years to get down to this project. Initially «Baron» was conceived as a screenplay for a full-length film.

«By the Name of Baron» is the first film on domestic TV to be called a Russian reply to «Once Upon a Time in America».

Prizes, awards, and nominations

2003

Two TEFI prizes awarded by the Russian Television Academy for 2002 in the nominations «Best TV series» and «Best director’s work» (Dmitry Svetozarov).

Prizes to Lilian Malkina («Best supporting actress») and Sergei Bekhterev («Best supporting actor») at the 4th Festival of TV Films «Spolokhi-2003» in Arkhangelsk

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• CREW
• CAST
• Prize