Isaak Babel, de verhalen

The Russian Jewish writer Isaak Babel (1894-1940) was an overnight success in 1925 with his stories Red Riders. In 1939 he fell victim to Stalin's purges and there was no trace of him until the archives of the secret service were opened in the nineties and his death was confirmed. Documentary maker Jack Janssen traced his three children and his widow Anthonina Pirozhkova. Using their story about Babel as husband and father, the film sketches a picture of a famous writer. The family's story is interwoven with the picture that Babel painted of himself in his literary work, augmented with historic film material including the feature The Bedzhyn Meadow by Sergei Eisenstein, that was based on a script by Babel.