The Ascent (, tr. Voskhozhdeniye, literally - The Ascension) is a 1977 black-and-white Soviet drama film directed by Larisa Shepitko and made at Mosfilm. The movie was shot in January 1974 near Murom, Vladimir Oblast, Russia, in appalling winter conditions, as required by the script, based on the novel Sotnikov by Vasil Bykaŭ. It was Shepitko's last film before her death in a car accident in 1979. The film won the Golden Bear award at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival in 1977. It was also selected as the Soviet entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 50th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Plot During the Great Patriotic War (World War II), two Soviet partisans go to a Belarusian village in search of food. After taking a farm animal from the collaborationist headman (Sergei Yakovlev), they head back to their unit, but are spotted by a German patrol. After a protracted gunfight in the snow in which one of the Germans is killed, the two men get away, but Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) is shot in the leg. Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) has to take him to the nearest shelter, the home of Demchikha (Lyudmila Polyakova), the mother of three young children. However, they are discovered and captured. The two men and a sobbing Demchikha are taken to the German headquarters. Sotnikov is interrogated first by local collaborator Portnov (Anatoli Solonitsyn), a former Soviet club-house director and children's choirmaster who became the local head of the Belarusian Auxiliary Police, loyal to the Germans. When Sotnikov refuses to answer Portnov's questions, he is brutally tortured by members of the collaborationist police, but gives up no information. However, Rybak tells as much as he thinks the police already know, hoping to live so he can escape later. Portnov offers him the job of policeman. The headman, now suspected of supporting the partisans, and Basya Meyer, the teen daughter of a Jewish shoemaker, are imprisoned in the same cellar for the night. The next morning, all are led out to be hanged. Rybak accepts Portnov's offer and the Germans let him join the police. Sotnikov and the others are executed. As he heads back to the camp with his new comrades, Rybak is vilified by the villagers. Realizing what he has done, he tries to hang himself in the outhouse with his belt, but fails. A fellow policeman calls