​Born in Ukraine in 1917, during the revolution, Khaldei initiated himself into photography by making a camera lens from his grandmother's glasses.

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War breaks out and Yevgeny becomes a war photographer. He joins Marshal Zhukov's army, with whom he becomes a friend, and takes part in the liberation of Berlin. He takes a symbolic photo of the capture of the Reichstag.

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His fame allows him to approach Stalin, he becomes his official photographer and accompanies him to Potsdam. It will also be present at Nuremberg, and at the Paris agreements. He works for the Tass agency and for Pravda. His photos are in the headlines.

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Latent anti-Semitism resurfaces, along with the affair of Stalin's doctors and the purges. He is kicked out of Tass, and Jews are forbidden to work for the Pravda newspaper. Khaldei sees his photo, a symbol of the Reichstag, travel around the world, while he lives humbly in a tiny Moscow apartment.

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Yevgeny Khaldei, Photographer under Stalin is the only documentary in existence on the life of the most important Soviet photographer of the 20th century.​

 

Release year : 1997