The Inner Circle

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The Inner Circle (Ближний круг) is a 1991 Russian film by Andrei Konchalovsky based on the true story of Ivan Sanchin, the KGB officer who was the private film projectionist of Iosif Stalin from 1939 until the dictator's death in 1953. Told from Sanchin's view, the sympathetic but tragically flawed hero maintains unwavering faith in his "Master" despite the arrest of his neighbors and his involvement with their daughter, his wife's affair with the chilling State Sec chief Lavrentii Beria and her tragic decline, and the deadly political machinations within the Kremlin he witnesses firsthand.

Tropes used in The Inner Circle include: