Synopsis
 

Evgenia, a Russian Literature Professor at the University of Kazan, is a member of the local Communist Party. Together with her husband and their two sons, they live the privileged lives of Communist Apparatchiks. In 1935 under Stalin’s leadership, the Party undergoes a major transformation. Little by little, all intellectuals are being summoned for interrogations to the secret police head quarters, the NKVD.

Program Note
 

The latest film by Marleen GORRIS, the director of Antonia’s Line, a woman film classic, and a master whose work was presented through the special retrospect at the 8th International Women’s Film Festival in Seoul, is Within the Whirlwind. The film is based on the autobiography of Evgenia GINZBURG, who lived through the turbulent times of Russia and is a story about the lives of individuals who were crushed in the path of history.
 In 1934, Russia, the murder of Sergey KIROV gave Stalin a reason to launch a large scale political purge. Evgenia Ginzburg, who had led a comfortable life as a Russian Literature professor, is also charged of being a Trotskyist and is interrogated. She desperately claims her innocence, but she had already been swept up by the political whirlwind. She survives from day to day, relying on her passion for literature and strong friendships in a labor camp that is deprived of humanity until she meets the camp doctor Anton. Little by little, other possibilities begin to open up in her life.
 The role of Evgenia, a woman of literature, rich emotions, and strength in the face of human dignity, is played by Emily WATSON, who is known in Korea for her roles in Breaking the Waves, Punch-Drunk Love, and Equilibrium. She is still undoubtedly beautiful. (Jay SOHN)