‘Young Stalin’ Biopic in Works From ‘Zone of Interest’ Producer Access Entertainment, Georgian Banner Independent Film Project (EXCLUSIVE)

“Young Stalin,” Simon Sebag Montefiore’s biography chronicling the life of Joseph Stalin as a bank-robbing gangster in pre-revolutionary Russia, is being adapted for film.

The feature is being produced by Archil Gelovani and Sergey Yahontov’s Georgia-based banner Independent Film Project, producers of recent Venice special jury prize winner “April,” alongside Sam Taylor at Film and Music Entertainment, with financing from Len Blavatnik‘s Access Entertainment, which backed Jonathan Glazer’s acclaimed Oscar-winning film “The Zone of Interest.”

Earmarked for production in 2025/26, “Young Stalin” will tell the story off how a diminutive 20-something “Soso” (a nickname given to him by his mother) led a group of revolutionaries in a massive bank heist to rob the Imperial Bank in 1907 Tbilisi and in the process became the man known as “Stalin.” As the description reads, this was “the Wild Wild East, made up of Cossacks, Bolshevik gunslingers, the Tsar’s secret police and proto fascistic brigades.”

“Young Stalin” is the newest addition to the upcoming slate for IFC, which is also in post-production on the U.K./Poland/Georgia co-production “Winter of the Snow,” starring BAFTA and Oscar nominee Lesley Manville, Tom Burke and Zofia Wichłacz. The Cold War thriller is set in the surreal and cinematic setting of 1981 Warsaw 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 production companies Wild Mouse, Film Produkcja, Iris & Film and Music Entertainment Ltd and is co-produced by Douglas Cummins. Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland is on board as an executive producer alongside Archil Gelovani and Independent Film Project executive producer Sergey Yahontev and Paul Miller and Ursula Romero Gerberding for ISB.

Meanwhile, IFB is nearing completion on “Ulysses,” a Georgia/Luxemburg/Canada co-production from Palme d’Or nominated director Rati Oneli. Oneli previously directed the hybrid documentary “City of the Sun,” which had its world premiere at the Berlinale in 2017, while he also co-wrote and produced Dea Kulumbegashvili’s “Beginning,” an Official Selection at Cannes. “Ulysses” delves into a rapidly transforming Georgian society, following an ex-convict haunted by a tragic past and a Chinese immigrant as they navigate a harsh world. Together, they seek to reclaim their identities and forge a new path amidst alienation and violence. 

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