Women Make Film: The Ascent, Alicia Malone, Kirsten Johnson

The Ascent (1977) -- (Movie Clip) Open, Punishment Squad

Artful opening of Ukranian-born Soviet director Larisa Shepitko's celebrated final feature, a band of partisans in 1942 Belarus emerge in flight from German occupiers, from the novella by Vasili Bykov, briefly introducing Vladimir Gotyukhim as Rybak, from The Ascent, 1977.

The Ascent (1977) -- (Movie Clip) We've Got Partisans

With Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) now shot as well as ill with fever, his Belarusian resistance comrade Rybak (Vladimir Gotyukhim) hopes to persuade stranded mom Demchikha (Lyudmila Polyakova), whose kids let them into her house, to help, during what the Soviets called the Great Patriotic War (World War II) against the invading Germans, in Larisa Shepitko's The Ascent, 1977.

The Ascent (1977) -- (Movie Clip) You Shoot Pretty Good

Dispatched from their starving fugitive band of partisans, fleeing Nazi patrols in 1942 Belarus, Larisa Shepitko directs Vladimir Gotyukhim as voluble Rybak and Boris Plotnikov as his relatively-new comrade Sotnikov, hoping to reach an isolated homestead where they found help once before, in The Ascent, 1977.

The Ascent (1977) -- (Movie Clip) You Work For The Germans?

With Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) now shot as well as ill with fever, his Belarusian resistance comrade Rybak (Vladimir Gotyukhim) hope to persuade stranded mom Demchikha (Lyudmila Polyakova), whose kids let them into her house, to help, during what the Soviets called the Great Patriotic War (World War II) against the invading Germans, in Larisa Shepitko's The Ascent, 1977.