Testimony (1988)

Testimony is a 1987 British independent musical drama film directed by Tony Palmer and starring Ben Kingsley, Sherry Baines and Robert Stephens. The film is based on the memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) as dictated in the book Testimony (edited by Solomon Volkov, ISBN 0-87910-021-4) and filmed in Panavision.

Cast

Ben Kingsley as Dmitri Shostakovich

Sherry Baines as Nina Shostakovich

Magdalen Asquith as Galya Shostakovich

Mark Asquith as Maxim Shostakovich

Terence Rigby as Joseph Stalin

Ronald Pickup as Mikhail Tukhachevsky

John Shrapnel as Andrei Zhdanov

Robert Reynolds as Brutus

Vernon Dobtcheff as Gargolovsky

Colin Hurst as Stalin's Secretary

Joyce Grundy as Keke Geladze

Mark Thrippleton as Young Joseph Stalin

Liza Goddard as The English Humanist

Peter Woodthorpe as Alexander Glazunov

Robert Stephens as Vsevolod Meyerhold

William Squire as Aram Khachaturian

Murray Melvin as The Film Editor

Robert Urquhart as The Journalist

Christopher Bramwell as Vanya

Brook Williams as H. G. Wells

Marita Phillips as Madam Lupinskaya

Music

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Leader: David Nolan

Conductor: Rudolf Barshai

The Golden Age Singers

Chorus Master: Simon Preston

Chilingirian Quartet

Soloists

Margaret Fingerhut

Yuzuko Horigome

Felicity Palmer

Howard Shelley

John Shirley-Quirk

Awards

Winner of the gold medal for Best Drama – New York International Film Festival

Winner of the Fellini Prize – UNESCO

Winner of the Critics Prize – São Paulo International Film Festival

Further reading

Volkov, Solomon: Shostakovich and Stalin: The Extraordinary Relationship Between the Great Composer and the Brutal Dictator; Knopf 2004. ISBN 0-375-41082-1

Fay, Laurel: Shostakovich versus Volkov: Whose Testimony? – The Russian Review, vol. 39 no. 4 October 1980 pp. 484–493.

External links

Testimony at IMDb

Testimony at Rotten Tomatoes

Testimony – The Story Of Shostakovich (Full Film), Tony Palmer Films on YouTube