“Mother” Movie poster.directed by V. Pudovkin

Artist I. Bograd

Mother is a 1926 Soviet drama film directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin. Set during the Russian Revolution of 1905, it tells the story of a woman’s political awakening after her husband is killed and her son is imprisoned. Based on Maxim Gorky’s 1906 novel The Mother, the film is the first part of Pudovkin’s “revolutionary trilogy,” followed by The End of St. Petersburg (1927) and Storm Over Asia (1928).

Banned in the United Kingdom in 1930 after the Masses Stage and Film Guild sought to screen it in London, the film nevertheless gained international recognition. At the 1958 World Expo, it was ranked number 8 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list. In 1968, Mosfilm restored the film with a new soundtrack composed by Tikhon Khrennikov.