Ivan’s Childhood

12-year-old Ivan, orphaned during World War II, joins the scouts.

Ivan is brave, but he is alive and scared. Ivan grows up, but deep down, he is still a boy. Ivan wants his mother to hug him, but his mother was shot. Tarkovsky reveals to us the troubled yet somehow happy world of his protagonist's dreams, contrasting it with the unbearable reality of war: hanged people with signs around their necks, iron hooks, torture chambers, comrades who never return from missions, and the glaring injustice and impossibility of growing up when you're 12. This is a war film that leaves no room for the thought of "let's repeat it," instead forcing out a different cry: "only if it never, ever happens again."

🏆 The film brought Tarkovsky worldwide acclaim and won the Golden Lion at the 23rd Venice International Film Festival, as well as several other awards.