Sonia the Movie : Voices and Music

THE VOICES
I tell the story of SONIA through historical voices of the period and the relatives and friends who knew her. But most of all I wanted Sonia as much as possible through her letters and memoirs to tell her own story. Her words are brought to life by the actress Maria Tucci.

Sonia - Maria Tucci
Galina Rokhlyna - Joan Rosenbaum
Guerin, Ivan Bunin, Benedikt Livshitz, Anatolii Lunacharsky, Dmitrii Tolstoy - Al Berr
Alexei Tolstoy, Vladimir Lenin, Izvestiia Announcer, Nikolai Punin - Richard Springle
Maximillian Voloshin, Vladimir Tatlin - Steven Wishnoff
Leonid Fainberg, Velemir Khlebnikov, - Peter Olberg
Nikolai Gumilyov - Scott Simmons
Elizabeta Dmitrieva - Mary Jane Terrell
B.M. Prileskaya-Barkaya, Nina Dymshitz - Melinda Buckley
Natalia Krandievskaya - Corinne Demole-Schutz
Vladimir Mayakovsky, Igor Forsunov - Steve Schrader
Marianna Tolstaya - Gardner McFall
Marianna Tolstaya as child - Amanda Olberg
Marina Shilovskaya - Jane Sharp

THE MUSIC
Piano music by Scriabin, Glinka, Ravel, Satie, Chopin, and especially Prokofiev’s Vision Fugitives, enriches the film’s emotional landscape. The music was performed by pianist Brandt Fredriksen and recorded especially for SONIA by music engineer Hans Kipfer at the Performing Arts Center at SUNY, Purchase.

Photo: Koktebel, 1909. Maximillian Voloshin, the poet, with a beard is standing in a belted toga. Alexei Tolstoy is the other man standing and Sonia is on the right with her hair in long braids.