Biopic “Young Stalin” in works by “Zone of Interest” producer Access Entertainment, Georgian Banner Independent Film Project (EXCLUSIVE)

“Young Stalin,” Simon Sebag Montefiore’s biography about Joseph Stalin’s life as a bank robber in pre-revolutionary Russia, is being adapted for film.

The feature film is produced by Archil Gelovani and Sergey Yahontov’s Georgia-based banner Independent Film Project (IFP), producers of the recent Venice Special Jury Prize-winning film April, along with Sam Taylor of Film and Music Entertainment, and produced by Len Blavatnik’s Access Entertainment, which backed Jonathan Glazer’s acclaimed Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest.

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Slated for production in 2025-26, Young Stalin tells the story of how a young 20-year-old “Soso” (a nickname given to him by his mother) leads a group of revolutionaries in a massive bank robbery robbing the Imperial Bank in Tbilisi in 1907, becoming the man known as “Stalin”. As the description states, this was “the Wild Wild East, consisting of Cossacks, Bolshevik gunslingers, the Tsar’s secret police and proto-fascist brigades.”

“Young Stalin” is the latest addition to the upcoming slate for IFP, which is also in post-production on the British-Polish-Georgian co-production “Winter of the Crow,” starring BAFTA and Oscar nominees Lesley Manville, Tom Burke and others at Zofia Wichłacz. The Cold War thriller is set in the surreal and cinematic backdrop of Warsaw in 1981 and comes from award-winning director Kasia Adamik. The film is produced by Olga Chajdas, Stanislaw Dziedzic, Katarzyna Ozga, Nicolas Steil and Sam Taylor for the production companies Wild Mouse, Film Produkcja, Iris & Film and Music Entertainment Ltd and co-produced by Douglas Cummins. Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland is on board as executive producer for ISB alongside Archil Gelovani and Independent Film Project executive producer Sergey Yahontev, as well as Paul Miller and Ursula Romero Gerberding.

Meanwhile, the IFP is nearing completion of “Ulysses,” a co-production between Georgia, Luxembourg and Canada directed by Rati Oneli. Oneli previously directed the hybrid documentary City of the Sun, which had its world premiere at the 2017 Berlinale, while he also co-wrote and produced Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning, an official selection at Cannes. “Ulysses” delves into a rapidly changing Georgian society and follows an ex-convict haunted by a tragic past and a Chinese immigrant as they navigate a harsh world. Together they try to regain their identity and forge a new path in the midst of alienation and violence.

IFP — which won the 2023 Werner Herzog Film Award for “Patient #1” — has several other projects in post-production, including a documentary “Eduard” about former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze’s final days in power during the 2003 Rose Revolution. The The film consists of exclusive, previously unpublished archives.

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