The film is based on the story by Timofey Smetanin "Egor Cheerin". The action takes place in the autumn of 1943. After long months of exhausting positional warfare, most of Major Belyaev's battalion was destroyed. Lieutenant Loboda reports that he is unable to oppose anything to the German ace snipers who are running the front line. One hope is for replenishment, among which experienced snipers should arrive. But the long-awaited column falls under a German air raid. As a result, everyone dies except a handful of soldiers, and a young hunter from Yakutia, Egor Cheerin. Having met the remnants of the replenishment, Lieutenant Loboda decides to test the young Yakut as a sniper. In the first fight, Egor manages to prove himself. He engages in a battle with German snipers and changes the balance of power on the front line.
Sardana Avksentieva, the ex-mayor of Yakutsk, said that she liked the film:
“Many thanks to the entire creative team. Making films about the war after almost 80 years in Yakutia, moreover completing it in a pandemic, is a titanic work. I usually avoid watching movies about the war in every possible way, because it always hurts me, I get very emotional. But I came today because I wanted to see it with my own eyes. This film is great. The creativity of Timofey Smetanin after so many years reaches a new generation in a new form. I'm not a film critic, but I liked what I saw! This is the most brutal Yakut film that I have seen so far!”
It is worth noting that after the screening, the applause did not subside for a long time. "A heroically, carefully and touchingly made film. There are no caricatured Germans here, I liked the musical improvisation scene, explosions, battle scenes. Computer graphics are not noticeable at all. I advise everyone to watch it! I feel very proud of Cheerin," said the moviegoer Mikhail.
There is real German speech in the film, the film was voiced by Gernot Grimm. After the screening, the director was asked if computer graphics were used. He replied that 70 percent of the film was shot on RIR, on a blue background. The budget of the film is quite small — five million 500 thousand rubles, including a grant of 500 thousand from Sinet Sakhawood film and animation development fund.
The film's director Dmitry Koltsov got into the project in 2015 as an actor when Arkady Novikov decided to shoot "Cheerin." Before that, Koltsov, who devoted 20 years to advertising, had never played in a movie. He got the role of Lieutenant Loboda. Filming was suspended for three years after Novikov's death. Then Dmitry Koltsov and the producer of the film, Nyurgun Ivanov, decided to shoot everything from scratch, where Koltsov again played the wise and brave Loboda.
The actor for the role of the main character Cheerin was not searched for long. The first person who came to the casting was the actor of the Theater of Indigenous Peoples of the North Aital Stepanov. The director immediately realized that he was looking for him.
"He is an amazing actor, very talented. We read one scene with him, and we realized: this is it! On the first day of shooting, we agreed to meet at the shooting studio at seven in the morning. I thought that I had to come before everyone, to meet everyone. I came at five to seven, and Aital was already there. It was a good sign. And in general, the film would not have turned out without him. Everything went well and smoothly. Everyone was organized at the highest level. Thank you all so much for your hard work, without it there would not be such a movie," said director Dmitry Koltsov.
"Why did we entrust the director's chair to Koltsov? I've known him for a long time, he's a very talented and committed young man. In a word, his eyes were burning, it was clear that this was his thing. In the original version, Cheerin was played by Fedot Lvov, but due to his busy schedule, we did not have the same shooting time. Zhenya Pivovarov and Dima Baishev also played in the movie, but during these three years they gained a lot of weight and did not look like wartime soldiers anymore. I had to start everything from scratch," said producer Nyurgun Ivanov.
According to the audience, the fact that there are no big names in the cast, the film did not suffer in any way, on the contrary, they noted that they sincerely believed the film characters.
