USSR / 1970 / 103mins / Historical Drama / Russian

This long-unseen Russian drama, never before released in the U.S., follows the life and death of Robert Moussombe, the leader of an unnamed African state. Moussombe is a fictionalized portrait of assassinated Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, and the film’s events are a pastiche of the Congo Crisis in the 1960s, which signified the ascent of the Cold War that unraveled the newly minted post-independence nations on the continent of Africa.

Alexei Speshnev

Alexei Speshnev began his career as a scriptwriter and in the 1930s, and worked in Kiev, Ukraine and Moscow (Mosfilm). In the early ‘60s, Speshnev taught screenwriting at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), the oldest Moscow Film School. Shortly thereafter, he started making films at Belarusfilm (film production studio in Minsk). Black Sun was his third fiction feature film and the second title in his trilogy dedicated to African and international relationships regarding the politics of the USSR. He passed away in 1994 in Moscow, Russia. Learn More