The Republic of ShKID (1966)
The film is based on the eponymous book, written by two former street gangsters - Grigori Belykh and Leonid Panteleyev. Film is set in the 1920s St. Petersburg, Russia. Streets of the city are full of the homeless boys. They are caught to be raised and educated at the correction school named after Dostoevsky. The boys are street smart and difficult. But the faculty stands up to the challenge. The teaches are being devoted and caring, and gradually win the respect of the most difficult kids. The school director Vicknixor is a refined intellectual, who becomes a role model for the boys.
Watch Trailer
Cast
Reviews
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
Set in 1920s St Petersberg when the book was written, this film was done in the 60s. This film is about the poor abandoned children growing up to be street wise, non trusting of anybody, mischievous, loveless. However their is one school master of an orphanage named after Dostoyevsky who is very compassionate and extremely patient to all these cases of children/kids picked off the street whose parents where either dead from suicide or execution amongst other things, is aware of the hope that lies beneath the rude and seemingly ungrateful kids who never new any better. The school master realizes, here is the part I like, that if he stops treating them as rascals as they have been all their lives, and shows that he is going to trust in them to have the place organized in the form of a republic with leaders and all, through fair voting, then he will gradually gain their respect.