Deep Home Front

Directed by

Pavel Pechenkin

Deep Home Front tells the story of the Kama region during the Great Patriotic War. Far from the front lines, people worked to the limits of their endurance, raised children, mourned loved ones, and believed that their labor was itself another front in the war. The film focuses on everyday life on the home front, where people sacrificed their health and, in some cases, were forced to live in circus arenas and orchestra pits. Teenage girls worked as blasters in the potash mines, laboratory assistants tested a typhus vaccine using methods unimaginable today, and more than 2000 housewives became record-breaking coal miners. These are only a few of the remarkable stories uncovered by the filmmakers. The screenplay is based on extensive research in state archives, departmental and municipal museums, and libraries. The production team also recorded dozens of interviews, while the film incorporates more than one hundred documented eyewitness accounts from the wartime years.