The Major (film)

The Major
The Major
	Film poster
Directed by	Yuri Bykov
Written by	Yuri Bykov
Produced by	Alexei Uchitel
Starring	Denis Shvedov; Yuri Bykov
Cinematography	Kirill Klepalov
Distributed by	Rock Studios; Bazelevs
Release dates	May 2013 (Cannes); 8 August 2013 (Russia);
Running time	99 minutes
Country	Russia
Language	Russian

The Major (Russian: Майор, translit. Mayor) is a 2013 Russian crime drama film written and directed by Yuri Bykov, who also stars. It was first screened in the International Critics' Week at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival,^[1] and was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.^[2]^[3]

The film tells of Russian police staff who fall into difficult life situations, and their use of official positions and procedures to escape.

A television miniseries adaptation, Seven Seconds, was released in February 2018 on Netflix.^[4]

Plot

Police Major Sergei Sobolev's wife is in labour. While rushing to the hospital his car hits and kills a boy on a pedestrian crossing. The boy's mother, Irina Gutorova, is the only witness.

The Major calls his colleagues to the scene. Pavel Korshunov eliminates evidence showing Sobolev's guilt, and the Chief of District Police forces the mother to give false testimony in favour of Major Sobolev.

Sobolev subsequently decides to confess and accept his punishment. The other police officers are opposed because, having covered for the major, they are complicit in the corruption in this modernized yet still corrupt police force.

Cast

Denis Shvedov as Major Sergei Sobolev
Yuri Bykov as Pavel Korshunov, Sobolev's partner
Ilya Isayev as Tolya Merkulov
Dmitriy Kulichkov as Gutorov
Boris Nevzorov as Alexey Pankratov, Chief of Police
Irina Nizina as Irina Gutorova
Kirill Polukhin as Kolya Burlakov

Television adaptation

A ten-episode television miniseries adaptation of The Major, Seven Seconds, created and showrun by Veena Sud and written and directed by a returning Yuri Bykov, was released in-full on February 23, 2018, on Netflix.^[4]