Springtime (1947 film)

Springtime
Directed by	Grigori Aleksandrov
Written by	Grigori Aleksandrov Moris Slobodskoy Aleksandr Raskin
Starring	Lyubov Orlova Nikolay Cherkasov Faina Ranevskaya
Music by	Isaak Dunayevsky
Cinematography	Yuri Yekelchik
Production company	Mosfilm
Release date	1947 (1947)
Running time	102 min.
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian

Springtime or (Russian: Весна, translit. Vesna) is a 1947 Soviet musical-comedy film directed by Grigori Aleksandrov.

Director Arkady Gromov decides to make a film about the life of scientists, presenting them as grim hermits detached from life, completely immersed in research. As a prototype the director decides to use a real scientist – Irina Nikitina, director of the Sun Institute. For the role of "Nikitina", Gromov finds Vera Shatrova, a young operetta actress who is an exact mirror image of her character.

Not wanting to interrupt her work in the operetta, Shatrova meets Nikitina and asks her for the time being to double for her on the set. Thus Nikitina for the first time gets to know director Gromov and the screenplay of the future film about scientists. She strongly opposes Gromov's views about the scientific world and explains to the director the errors of his outlook. In turn Nikitina sees how complex and painstaking is the work of filmmakers. Because of the "swap" Nikitina and Shatrova get into many absurd situations but at the end of the film all is resolved swimmingly...

At the 8th Venice International Film Festival in 1947 Lyubov Orlova received a special prize for best female acting. The film was also screened at the Mariánské Lázně International Film Festival in the same year and at the Locarno International Film Festival in July 1948.