<Tr> <Th> Box office </Th> <Td> $97 million </Td> </Tr> <P> Enemy at the Gates is a 2001 French - American war film written and directed by Jean - Jacques Annaud and based on William Craig's 1973 nonfiction book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad, which describes the events surrounding the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942 and 1943 . The film's main character is a fictionalized version of sniper Vasily Zaytsev, a Hero of the Soviet Union during World War II . It includes a snipers' duel between Zaytsev and a Wehrmacht sniper school director, Major Erwin König . </P> <P> In 1942, following the invasion of the Soviet Union the year before, Vasily Zaytsev (Jude Law), a shepherd from the Ural Mountains who is now a soldier in the Red Army, finds himself on the front lines of the Battle of Stalingrad . Forced into a suicidal charge by barrier troops against the invading Germans, he uses impressive marksmanship skills--taught to him at a young age by his grandfather--to save himself and commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes). </P> <P> Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins) arrives in Stalingrad to coordinate the city's defences and demands ideas to improve morale . Danilov, now a senior lieutenant, suggests that the people need figures to idolise and give them hope, and publishes tales of Vasily's exploits in the army's newspaper that paint him as a national hero and propaganda icon . Vasily is transferred to the sniper division, and he and Danilov become friends . They also both become romantically interested in Tania Chernova (Rachel Weisz), a citizen of Stalingrad who has become a private in the local militia . Danilov has her transferred to an intelligence unit away from the battlefield . </P>

Where was the movie enemy at the gates filmed