1938: Shostakovich encourages his pupil Fleischmann to write an opera based on the Chekhov story 'Rothschild's violin'. Fleischmann is killed during the siege of Leningrad. Shostakovich completes the orchestration, but in 1948 is advised to suppress the opera, during Stalin's campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans". Jewish motifs enter Shostakovich's own work.
| Directing | Edgardo Cozarinsky | Director |
| Writing | Edgardo Cozarinsky | Writer |
| Editing | Martine Bouquin | Editor |
| Camera | Jacques Bouquin | Director of Photography |
| Art | Margus Õunapuu | Assistant Art Director |