Emily Watson, Within the Whirlwind

Thanks to Dan for the tip to the trailer for Within the Whirlwind

1937, the year that Eugenia Ginzburg was arrested and falsely charged as a Trotskyist terrorist counterrevolutionary, was only the beginning of Stalin’s purges. Nearly six million people were arrested on trumped up charges, and millions were executed or perished in prisons and camps. Eugenia Ginzburg, an historian and loyal Communist Party member, chronicles her own terrifying arrest, interrogation, and eighteen-year imprisonment… These memoirs are important for those who wish to understand Russian history and for anyone who has ever wondered how they might survive in a maelstrom, facing constant betrayals, overwhelming physical hardship, agonizing loneliness, and a longing for the past. (Amazon.com)

Directed by Marleen Gorris (Antonia, Mrs. Dalloway, The Luzhin Defence — which earned a British Independent Film Award nomination for Emily Watson). Details from the back cover of Eugenia Ginzburg’s memoir, after the cut.

(click to enlarge)