The Bolshoi

Yulya comes from a small mining town. Pototsky, a former dancer, notices her and tells her she will be a great ballerina. The road runs through the ballet school in Moscow, where the provincial, headstrong girl is taken on by the exacting teacher Galina Mikhailovna Beletskaya. There Yulya learns that the Bolshoi is not only white tutus and gilded boxes: there is injury, rivalry, hunger, and the ones who have to give it up. Valery Todorovsky's film shows the ballet world from the inside. Yulya is played by the ballerina Margarita Simonova. Across one hundred and thirty-two minutes it keeps the beauty of the stage and the price paid for it inside the same frame.