Unique, mostly unseen before or long forgotten, archive footage from March 1953, presents the funeral of Joseph Stalin as the culmination of the Soviet ritual of state funerals. The news of Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, shocked the entire nation. The burial ceremony, attended by tens of thousands of mourners, ended up in a stampede in which many people perished. We observe every stage of the funeral spectacle, described by Pravda newspaper, as the Great Farewell, and receive an unprecedented access to the dramatic, grotesque, macabre and absurd experience of life and death under Stalin’s reign.

Writer / Sergey Loznitsa    Editor / Danielius Kokanauskis    Sound / Ivo Heger , Vladimir Golovnitski

Photogallery