USSR

A 1962 Soviet black-and-white drama film directed by Mikhail Romm about nuclear particle physics, Soviet scientists
(physicists) and their relationship. The film won the Crystal Globe Award in 1962.

Plot:
Two young physicists, an afflicted experimenter Dmitri Gusev (Batalov) and a sceptical physicist-theorist Ilya Kulikov (Smoktunovsky) carry out nuclear researches at a Siberian research institute. Dmitri heads the researches begun by his teacher Sintsov who as a result of experiment had received a deadly dose of radiation. Gusev is irradiated also. Doctors warn that any more radiation will kill him. At that time his friend Ilya and Lyolya who loved Dmitri developed a romantic relationship. The enamoured couple prepares for a wedding and look for a possibility to inform Dmitri about it. When they meet, Dmitri already suspects this and coldly received Lyolya and Ilya. Lyolya is caught up in self-contradictions, and as she tries to establish his true feelings for her she learns about the terrible diagnosis. Realising that she still loves Dmitri, Lyolya cancels her wedding to Kulikov and weds Gusev.Read More »

Mike Pinsky, DVDVerdict wrote:
Russian film poet Evgeni Bauer combined the technical virtuosity of D.W. Griffith with the haunting terror of Edgar Allan Poe and the artist’s eye of Johannes Vermeer. He is — perhaps — the greatest film director you have never heard of. During his brief four-year career, Evgeni Bauer created macabre masterpieces. They are dramas darkly obsessed with doomed love and death, astonishing for their graceful camera movements, risqué themes, opulent sets and chiaroscuro lighting. Tragically, Bauer died in 1917, succumbing to pneumonia after breaking his leg.Read More »

Quote:
Dovzhenko was commissioned to make what was intended to be a minor propaganda film to encourage the establishment of farming collectives. Under Dovzhenko’s lyrical montage and photography what emerged far exceeded propaganda; Earth has repeatedly made every international top ten film list.Read More »

Quote:
One day, four sorcerers appeared out of the blue in the streets of a small town. These evil old people had long been dreaming of getting back their former vigor and youth. But to do that, they had to find people who would aimlessly waste their time. And they were very lucky: four schoolchildren had proved ideal guinea pigs for the magicians. The kids and the old people changed their roles for a while. You can’t even imagine what happened! The schoolchildren had to hide for some time in an abandoned house on the outskirts of the town – they just couldn’t appear before their parents as bearded, bent, old persons. Meanwhile, the sorcerers had their fun at school in the guise of their victims. And only on a certain day and at a certain hour, time could be turned back again…
ruscicoRead More »

Quote:
Two 14-year-olds experience the first pangs of romantic love in the midst of their last moments of childhood. Sensitively told, this film conveys a sense of life as it is lived among that age-group, and is unusual because it does not bear a heavy party stamp. This is the first feature film for director {$Dinara Asanova}, who was much-respected in the Soviet Union for making realistic films about young people. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideRead More »

Story “White Nights” by Fyodor Dostoevsky shot by Ivan Pyryev. Petersburg 1840s. A Dreamer, living in a big city for a few years and all the time he is alone. But one summer in St. Petersburg’s White Nights on the Neva, he meets Nastya. Five nights walking around the city, young people talk about themselves. With all the passion and tenderness of its nature the dreamer falls in love with Nastya. The girl, has feelings of despair of former lover, Dreamer promises to marry her. Unfortunately, the happiness is short-lived … Nastya is regaining his old love, and Dreamer is alone again.

1960 – Certificate IV IFF Film Festival in London-60
1960 – Best Film of 1960 (with the films “The Ballad of a Soldier” and “Revenge”) by a decision of the British Film InstituteRead More »

From Mosfilm:
A musical comedy.
The mid 30s. Klim Yarko, a demobilized tank driver from the Far East returns to the Ukraine collective farm where Maryana Bazhan, his long-standing love, lives. But Maryana is a famous tractor-driver of the vicinity and her admirers are legion. In attempt to get rid of them she invents a story of her love to Nazar, a butch and bummer. Klim, a simple soul, finds himself in a complicated situation but finally due to his sincerity and industry he wins sympathies of the whole farm and the famous Maryana’s love.Read More »

Everything seems swell when a young Siberian moves to Moscow, finds work in a factory, joins the Communist Party, and marries a beautiful young Bolshevik girl. But when the girl loses her all-important party card (i.e. identification papers), the Siberian’s dark past comes to light…Commissioned in the wake of Kirov’s assassination (in which an assassin got access to Kirov’s office with a stolen party card), this is both a fantastic melodrama and a chilling work of propaganda.Read More »

Sokurov’s first full-length feature film, filmed in 1978 and restored in 1987 at Lenfilm. The plot is based on the motives of Andrey Platonov’s works “The Potudan River” and “The Origin of the Master”.
The picture has become today a film classics, but in 1978 Sokurov was not allowed to defend his diploma at VGIK. Moreover, the film was sentenced to destruction by the cinematographic authorities. The authors miraculously managed to save the negative. In this picture, Sokurov formed an alliance with screenwriter Yuri Arabov and cameraman Sergei Yurizditsky.Read More »