“Only Old Men Are Going to Battle” is a 1973 Soviet war film directed by Leonid Bykov (Dovzhenko Film Studio).
According to the plot, there is a battle for the Dnieper. The older, more experienced pilots tried, where possible, to save the young and inexperienced.
The film shows how these old men, despite their age and physical limitations, heroically fight for their country and its freedom. The film gained enormous popularity among viewers and became one of the most famous films about the Great Patriotic War.
The film “Only Old Men Are Going to Battle” became one of the most famous and popular films about the Great Patriotic War, and received several high awards, including:
- Silver Medal named after A. Dovzhenko “For works on a heroic-patriotic theme” (1974)
- First prize for feature films at the VII All-Union Film Festival in Baku in 1974;
- Special Jury Prize of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival-74 (Czechoslovakia, 1974);
- Main Prize of the International Film Festival “Films for Freedom” in Sopot-74 (Yugoslavia);
- The Freedom statuette is the Main Prize of the III International Film Festival of Films about Freedom and Revolution in Sopot (Poland, 1974).