Father Sergius

Prince Stepan Kasatsky learns that his fiancée is the tsar’s mistress, breaks the engagement and withdraws to a monastery to try to reach holiness. But the retreat does not free him from his pride; what he fled comes after him, and the search for sanctity turns into another kind of vanity. Yakov Protazanov adapted the film from the story Leo Tolstoy published posthumously in 1911, and it is set in the reign of Nicholas I. This was the first film version of the story: depicting a priest on screen was not permitted in the Russian Empire, and only became possible after the October Revolution of 1917. The film is therefore both a literary adaptation and the direct result of a censorship rule being lifted. Ivan Mosjoukine plays Kasatsky, with Nathalie Lissenko and Vladimir Gaydarov in the cast. The silent film runs a hundred and twelve minutes.