The Great Warrior Skanderbeg

The Great Warrior Skanderbeg (1953)

Великий воин Албании Скандербег

I did not bring you freedom, but I already found here among all of you.

A biography of George Kastriot Skanderbeg widely known as Skanderbeg, a 15th-century Albanian lord who defended his land against the Ottoman Empire for more than two decades.

Date of release
1953-11-28
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (18)
Runtime
2h 3m
Genres
Action, History, Drama
Director
Sergei Yutkevich

Casting

Interesting facts

The Great Warrior Skanderbeg is a 1953 Soviet-Albanian biopic directed by Sergei Yutkevich. It was entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival where it earned the International Prize. Yutkevich also earned the Special Mention award for his direction.

Production

In April 1949, Enver Hoxha wrote to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting that a film about Skanderbeg be made. The film started production in 1951. The Soviet Union paid for 80% of the production with Albania paying the remaining 20%. The Soviets decided to make a film about a national hero as they previously done in coproductions with the Mongolian People's Republic, China, and East Germany.

Most of the film was shot in the Soviet Union at the Mosfilm Studio and in Yalta, Sudak, and Kislovodsk. Some scenes were filmed in Albania such as Gjirokastër being used as Skanderbeg's stronghold in Krujë or scenes in Venice being filmed in the St. Procopius church of Tirana. The majority of the actors were from the Soviet Union, including the actor playing Skanderbeg. Vahram Papazian, an Armenian, played the Ottoman sultan.

The screenplay featured historical inaccuracies and anachronisms. The phrase "Science has no motherland" despite the word science not existing in the modern sense yet and Skanderbeg uses rice in a scene explaining his battle strategies. A scene of men smoking was removed as tobacco was not used in Albania at the time.

The original Albanian dub was considered to be of poor quality. Sergei Yutkevich criticized the monotone voice given to Skanderbeg and proposed that he should be voiced by Naim Frashëri. The film was redubbed in 2012 under the direction of Piro Milkani and Eno Milkani.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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