The seamy Jewish underworld of Odessa is the setting for Isaac Babel's story based on the life of gangster king Mishka Yaponchik ("Mike the Jap") Vinnitsky. Murder is a way of life for Benya and his gang. They profit from their criminal activities until the Russian Revolution and the local commissar assigns them "emergency revictualing patrol," making them a "revolutionary" regiment, complete with tattooed red stars. But this new post backfires for Benya as he finds himself ensnared in a Bolshevik trap.

" [Benya Krik] not only presented its swaggering hero as the victim of the Bolshevik regime but risked accusations of anti-Semitism by Jews as criminal profiteers... Opening in Kiev in early 1927, Benya Krik was almost immediately banned by the Ukrainian office for political education."
- J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

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The National Center For Jewish Film
Brandeis University, Lown 102, MS053, Waltham MA 02454
P: (781) 899 7044, F: (781) 736 2070

Benya Krik

USSR, 1926, 90 minutes, B&W
Silent with English intertitles
Directed by Vladimir Vilner

$72 Institutional Use DVD/VHS

Public Exhibition 35MM Rental also available




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