Ralph Fiennes' The Whirte Crow was inspired by the book Rudolf Nureyev: The Life by Julie Kavanaugh. The drama charts the iconic dancer's famed defection from the Soviet Union to the West in 1961, despite KGB efforts to stop him.
"It's astonishing that this is Ivenko's first movie role, because he projects Nureyev's drive, seductiveness, intellectual curiosity, imperiousness, vulnerability, and mercurial temper with a naturalism that seems effortless.."
- Chicago Reader
"The White Crow fitfully does justice to Nureyev's overwhelming desire to be an artist, and that's not a negligible achievement."
- Christian Science Monitor