Maschenka (1987 film)

Maschenka
Directed by	John Goldschmidt
Produced by	Manfred D. Heid
Written by	Vladimir Nabokov (novel) (as V. Sirin)
Screenplay by	John Mortimer
Based on	Mary (novel)
Starring	Cary Elwes Irina Brook Freddie Jones Michael Gough Lena Stolze and Jean-Claude Brialy
Music by	Nick Glowna
Cinematography	Wolfgang Treu
Edited by	Tanja Schmidbauer
Distributed by	Film 4
Release date	1987
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Maschenka (Russian: Машенька, Mashen'ka; English: Mary) is a 1987 British film adaptation of the debut novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first published under his pen name V. Sirin in 1926. The film was directed by John Goldschmidt from a screenplay by John Mortimer and stars Cary Elwes as Ganin and Irina Brook as Maschenka.

The story, said to be semi-autobiographical, is of Lev Glebovich Ganin (Elwes), a Russian émigré who has been displaced by the Russian Revolution. Now living in a boarding house in Berlin, Ganin discovers that his long-lost first love, Maschenka (Brook) is the wife of the rather unappealing boarder next door, Alfyrov (Coy), and that and she is on her way to rejoin her husband. This knowledge, combined with the incessant recitation of his memories of old Russia by another boarder, Podtyagin (Jones), send him into a state of reverie. Ganin contrives a complex scheme in order to reunite with Maschenka, who he believes still loves him.

The motion picture was filmed on location in Berlin, West Germany and in Helsinki and Katajanokka, Finland. For the sequence depicting Maschenka's arrival by train the producers rented the Russian Imperial Finnish train that once belonged to the Romanov family.

Goldschmidt won the Cine De Luca Award for Directing at the Monte Carlo TV Festival.

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