The Ugly Swans (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The Ugly Swans
Ugly swans poster.jpg
Directed by Konstantin Lopushansky
Produced by Catherine Dussart
Dmitry Gerbachevsky
Andrey Sigle
Written by Konstantin Lopushansky
Vyacheslav Rybakov
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (novel)
Starring Catherine Dussart
Gregory Hlady
Music by Andrey Sigle
Cinematography Vladislav Gurtchin
Edited by Maxim Holodiuk
Sergei Obukhov
Aleksandr Zaretzky
Distributed by Proline Film
Release dates
  • October 19, 2006 (2006-10-19)
Running time 105 minutes
Country Russia
Language Russian

The Ugly Swans (Russian: Гадкие лебеди) is a 2006 Russian science fiction film directed by Konstantin Lopushansky, based on the novel of the same name by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The film is often compared to Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, also adapted from a Strugatsky book.[1][2]


The film's plot is loosely based on the novel, with some superficial differences. The story has been adjusted slightly to contextualize it in the "near future," with the main character Victor Banev recast as a UN envoy to the town of Tashlinsk, where a mysterious group has taken the town's children to an isolated boarding school. The major departure from the novel's plot is in the ending, in which the "Aquatters" ("Slimeys" from the novel) are all killed by the humans. The children are heroically rescued by Banev, but they are unable to reassimilate into society and are institutionalized.

A small role created for the film was a UN negotiator named Gennady Komov, a reference to a popular character from the Strugatskys' other books.


  1. ^ Film description at the London Film Festival
  2. ^ Article at

External links[edit]