for Rybak until Rybak opens the door. The policeman tells him that their commander wants him and leaves him alone in the courtyard. Rybak stares out the open door and begins to laugh and weep. Cast Boris Plotnikov as Sotnikov Vladimir Gostyukhin as Rybak Sergei Yakovlev as Village elder Lyudmila Polyakova as Demchikha Viktoriya Goldentul as Basya Meyer Anatoli Solonitsyn as Portnov, the collaborationist interrogator Maria Vinogradova as Village elder's wife Nikolai Sektimenko as Stas' Production Pre-production Before The Ascent, the director Larisa Shepitko shot the film You and Me. Production took place under an atmosphere of severe stress. Technical and organizational difficulties led to the necessity of calling an ambulance for the director's health. The release of the film was not any easier; the censors deleted critical scenes and Shepitko had to fight for every single one of them. This struggle was not always successful. Despite the fact that the film was one of the prize winners at the Venice Film Festival, the removed scenes were a terrible blow to Shepitko, who believed that changing an important moment leads to the loss of main ideas. For Shepitko it was a difficult time after the film's release. By her own admission, for a period of four months the director was in "a monstrous mental and physical exhaustion." The realization of what was subsequently necessary came to her suddenly while she was recuperating at a Sochi sanatorium, but her creative plans were undermined by a disastrous fall, which resulted in a serious concussion and a spinal injury. For a few weeks Shepitko was confined to bed. The situation was also aggravated by the fact that she was pregnant, but she felt that during her pregnancy she came to understand the complexities of life more fully. Every day she was haunted by the possibility of death; reading the novel Sotnikov by Vasil Býkaŭ during this period helped Shepitko express this state on the silver screen. Screenplay For the most part the screenplay written by Yuri Klepikov follows the novel. Shepitko turned to Klepikov on the recommendation of her classmate Natalia Ryazantseva but he was already busy working on another script. Klepikov did not refuse the commission, but he asked to postpone working on The Ascent for a week. Shepitko urged him to start work immediately and a single telephone conversation with her convinced him to drop everything he was doing. Klepikov, by