‚A. Akhmatova’s private affair‘. dir. S. Aranovitch, Leningrad film studio, 1989, music by A. Khnajfel and S. Gubajdulina. Text is read by R. Balashova, L. Malevannaya, V. Zakharov.
Semjon Davidovitch Aranovith is the author of 20 documentaries and 9 fiction films, ‚great documentary maker‘, ‚the best documentary maker in the Lenfilm‘. (his documentaries are ‚Nation of the Earth and Sky‘ (it won Leipzig’s film festival prize), ‚Anna Akhmatova’s private affair‘ (awarded prizes in the film festivals at Lyon, San-Francisco, USA), ‚I served in the Stalin’s body-guard (diplomaed at the Venice film festival), ‚Islands‘ (prizes at the Russian and Danish film festivals); ‚Torpedo-boats‘ (USSR’s state premium), ‚Confrontation‘, ‚The year of the dog‘ (‚Silver Bear‘ and World’s premium at the international film festival in Berlin). He is the only documantarist on the Lenfilm who was able to make and what is more importatnt to save video material about A. Akhmatova’s funerals ( burial service in the Niolskij cathedral and funerals itself in Komarovo), because the films were seized and wiped out stright away after the funerals by KGB agents). Every bit of available documentary material was included into the film: - amateur’s filming of the A. Akhmatova’s literature secretary Nika Glen in Golitsin (1964); shots taken in 1964,when she was awarded the Etna-Taormina prize, an international poetry prize awarded in Italy; - filming of the funerals ( burial service in the Niolskij cathedral and funerals on the Komarovo cemetry), which S. D. Aranovitch took, and also the following cin- and photodocuments: pictures of A. Blok’s, V. Majakovskij burial; shots from feature film of the 20th ‚Young lady and hooligan‘, where V. Majakovskij was in the role of hooligan;- amateur’s filming made by one of Pasternak’s friends in the Peredelkino cottage. Memoirs of Anna Akhmatova are quoted in the film, her descriptions of N. Gumilev, A. Blok, V. Majakovskij, O. Mandelshtam, M. Tsvetaeva, B. Pasternak, N. Punin and A. Solzhenitsin, memoirs of L. K. Chukovskaja devoted to A. Akhmatova, L. Gumilev’s letters to mother from the stalin’s concentration camps.