Chervona Ruta (film)

Chervona Ruta is a 1971 Soviet Ukrainian musical film written by Miroslav Skochilyas and directed by Roman Oleksiv, starring Sofia Rotaru and Vasyl Zinkevych alongside popular Soviet Ukrainian ensembles. One of the first modern Soviet musical films, and the first modern Ukrainian musical filmed in Bukovina and the Carpathian mountains in the Ukrainian SSR, Chervona Ruta features short dialogues combined with legendary popfolk songs in the Ukrainian language and characteristic Western Ukraine dances in modern pop choreography. The film was released in both a Ukrainian and a Russian language version, though in both versions all but one of the songs are in Ukrainian.

Oksana played by Sofia Rotaru is a young and beautiful Carpathian girl. On the DonetskVerkhovyna train she becomes acquainted with a young miner from Donetsk called Boris. The travellers fall in love, but are parted when they arrive at their destination. In the Carpathian mountains their paths diverge, but Boris played by Vasyl Zinkevych, soloist of the instrumental band Smerichka discovers where she is staying. The couple meet again and rekindle their love. Their friends invite them to perform in a concert for vacationers at a mountain resort, where they sing about their feelings for each other.The idea to make a movie about Ukrainian popfolk culture set in the Carpathian mountains arose from the fame of Smerichka and the popularity of the song Chervona Ruta in the Soviet Union. The original idea was to make a movie about Smerichka, using Vasily Zinkevich as the main actor another soloist from the group, Nazariy Yaremchuk, had also been considered. As there was no female leading actor in Smerichka the scenario was changed to a simple plot about a sudden blaze of love between Boris, an unsophisticated miner, and the Bukovinian beauty Oksana. By 1971 Sofia Rotaru was already a wellknown singer in Bukovina both for her popfolk songs and for her victory at the 1968 International Song Festival in Bulgaria. She was at that time a teacher at the Chernivtsi Musical College. When filming of the first Ukrainian musical started in Yaremche Rotaru was given the role of Oksana. ........

Source: Wikipedia