Within the Whirlwind

About The Film

From the bestselling memoirs of Russian Jewish poet Evgenia Ginzburg, Oscar-winning director Marleen Gorris (Antonia's Line) has crafted a sweeping, epic drama. Oscar-nominee Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves) portrays Ginzburg as she falls from Communist grace under Stalin's "Great Purge." After living a life of privilege as a loyal party member, she is detained with other intellectuals and academics, and brutally interrogated by the secret police. Betrayed by her husband and forced to abandon her children, Evgenia is convicted on trumped-up charges and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in a desolate Soviet Gulag camp. Ulrich Tukur (The Lives of Others) plays the exiled German Catholic doctor Anton who rekindles her will to survive amidst the frozen horrors of Siberia. Emily Watson gives a fearless performance as Ginzburg, a woman who found the courage to live and tell her story.