PERVYY OTRYAD

It's 1942 and Russia finds itself caught up in the Second World War. The war is going badly for the Red Army however, loses are high and the Germans are attempting to capture Moscow as quickly as possible in order to settle the war in their favour. In the process small groups of strategists and generals on both sides rely on more than purely military means such as tanks, aircraft and infantry. With the aid of occult practices they try, via contact to the realm of the dead, to procure advantages for their armies. To this end the Nazis have a secret organisation, incorporated within the SS, by the name of "Ahnenerbe", that is supposed to strengthen the troops on the front with an army of dead knights from the twelfth century. These knights of the so-called "German Order" were once defeated by Alexander Nevsky on the ice of the frozen Lake Pepsus. Now they are to rise from the dead and help the Nazis to victory. The Red Army tries to prevent this by mobilising a group of youths with paranormal abilities against the Nazis' plans. This Red Army special unit eventually encounters the army of ghostly knights awoken by the Nazis and it comes to a showdown.

The animated and oral history elements of this film, as well as the balancing act involved in the production, firstly between the demands of a feature film and historical drama, as well as those between ghost story and documentary drama, make this a fascinating cinematic experiment.