A Russian-Ukrainian film about a legendary Soviet sniper nicknamed "Lady Death" is aiming to be a hit on the silver screen in both nations, despite the crisis that has turned the former allies against each other.
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Titled Battle for Sevastopol in Russia but Indestructible across the border in Ukraine, the movie – about a female sharpshooter who reportedly killed more than 300 Nazi troops – is a co-production between the two countries made just before relations nosedived.
And despite the freeze in ties between the former Soviet nations that has seen Ukraine ban a slew of modern Russian films, the $US5 million ($6.5 million) movie was launched last week with glitzy gala premieres in both Moscow and Kiev.
"Despite everything, it has been accepted both by the new Ukrainian authorities and our Russian ones," said director Sergei Mokritsky, who grew up in Ukraine but lives in Russia. "I am hoping this film will unite people and at least for two hours, for the length of this film, people can come together in our shared history."
The Russian-language film is about Ukrainian-born sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko, nicknamed "Lady Death", and comes out ahead of the 70th anniversary in May of the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II.
Trained as a sharpshooter and sent to fight on the frontline in 1941, aged 25, Pavlichenko in less than a year was said to have killed 309 Nazis during battles in Odessa and the strategic city of Sevastopol on Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.