The City of Masters

In a free city of medieval Europe where craftsmen live by their own rules, the soldiers of Duke de Malicorne take over. The townspeople appear to submit at first, then withdraw into the forest and organise a resistance. At the centre of the story stand young Karakol, looked down on because of his hunched back, and Veronika, whom he loves. The villain of this fairy tale is plainly an occupier, and its heroes are the working people of the city themselves. Adapted from a play Tamara Gabbe wrote for children, the film treats occupation and refusal to submit in the language of a fairy tale. Marianna Vertinskaya and Georgi Lapeto appear in Vladimir Bychkov’s eighty four minute Soviet production, completed at the Belarusian studios in 1965.