Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka

Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1961) — Aleksandr Rou's adaptation of Gogol — is available to watch online on iFILM. It is Christmas Eve in a Ukrainian village, the devil has stolen the moon, and blacksmith Vakula is desperately in love with Oksana, the most headstrong girl around. Her price for marriage: a pair of slippers worn by the Empress herself.

Vakula grabs the devil by the tail and flies to St. Petersburg to get them. Georgi Millyar plays the devil with gleeful menace; Sergei Martinsonas the rotund sorcerer Patsyuk and a young Andrei Demyanenko round out the cast. Rou fills the 69-minute film with Ukrainian folk costumes, carols and a sense of festive chaos that makes it one of the most warmly regarded Soviet adaptations of Gogol — and a perennial holiday watch. Stream Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1961) online on iFILM.