Russian

  • Marlen Khutsiyev – Mne dvadtsat let AKA I Am Twenty [+Extras] (1965)

    1961-1970ClassicsDramaMarlen KhutsiyevUSSR

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Synopsis:
    I am Twenty is notable for its often dramatic camera movements, handheld camerawork and heavy use of location shooting, often incorporating non-actors (including a group of foreign exchange students from Ghana and the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko) and centering scenes around non-staged events (a May Day parade, a building demolition, a poetry reading). Filmmakers Andrei Tarkovsky and Andrei Konchalovsky both play small roles in the film. The dialogue often overlaps and there are stylized flourishes that echo the early French New Wave, especially François Truffaut’s black and white films. The screenplay, co-written by Gennadi Shpalikov, originally called for a film running only 90 minutes, but the full version of the film runs for three hours.Read More »

  • Don Askarian – Paradzhanov (1998)

    1991-2000ArmeniaDocumentaryDon AskarianTV

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    One of the several documentaries dedicated to the great master Sergei Paradjanov, died in 1990. On this occasion, who is behind the camera is the acclaimed director of Armenian origin Don Askarian. The film was produced in 1998 by Don Film in Co-Production with Margarita Woskanian and ZDF-ARTE.Read More »

  • Lev Kulidzhanov – Prestuplenie i nakazanie AKA Crime and Punishment (1969)

    Drama1961-1970CrimeLev KulidzhanovUSSR

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Plot Synopsis
    This Russian adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment packs nearly every pivotal event from the mammoth novel into its 200 minute running time. Georgi Taratorkin stars as Raskolnikov, the impressionable student who believes himself to be above the law-and commits murder to prove his theory. Innokenti Smoktunovskiy, best known for his brilliant interpretation of the title character in the Russian Hamlet (1964), costars as police inspector Porfiry, who humbly but diligently wears down Raskolnikov’s alibi. Most cinemadaptations of Crime and Punishment end with the protagonist’s arrest; this one retains Dostoyevsky’s lengthy post-prison epilogue, in which Raskolnikov learns at long last how to be a human being.

    All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Yuliya Solntseva & Aleksandr Dovzhenko – Poema o more AKA The Poem of the Sea (1959)

    1951-1960Aleksandr DovzhenkoDramaUSSRYuliya Solntseva

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Summary:
    This is a movie-poem with philosophic and lyric contemplations about the construction of Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, closure of the Dnieper, creation of Kakhovskoye Sea and also about human destinies involved in this great overturn of the region’s life. The action takes place in 1956-57. To the farm chairman’s call the people born in the village located near the Dniepr river that is to be flooded come to say good-buy to their birthplace. It is very hard for the senior generation to destroy their native houses and demolish the gardens as their memories of happy peaceful life and of the dreadful war are associated with them. The young people on the contrary smash down everything old with enthusiasm being sure that it brings nearer the bright future. Spring waters of the Dniepr are out and the Ukrainian village sinks to the bottom of the new Kakhovskoye Sea…
    Source : www.mosfilm.ruRead More »

  • Aleksey Fedorchenko – Angely revolyutsii AKA Angels of Revolution (2014)

    2011-2020Aleksey FedorchenkoDramaRussia

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Five friends – a poet, an actor, a painter, an architect and a primitivist film director – are five red avant-garde artists who try to find the embodiment of their hopes and dreams in the young Soviet state. The Revolution is boiling up like a bottle with apple cider: winged service dogs and heart-shaped potatoes, dead Semashko, the People’s Commissar for Health, and cheerful angels, love for the Tsar and love for the young secretary Annushka, executions and pregnancies – everything is interlaced and inseparable!Read More »

  • Aleksey German Jr. – Pod elektricheskimi oblakami AKA Under Electric Clouds (2015)

    2011-2020Aleksey German Jr.DramaRussiaSci-Fi

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    Quote:
    Aleksey German Jr., son of famed Russian auteur Aleksey German, comes into his own prominence with his third feature Under Electric Clouds, which took home a cinematography award following its premiere at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival. Much like his father’s cinema, German announces similar interests in existentialist societal woes impervious to logical narrative format, and exchanges deliberations of the past (his previous title, Paper Soldier takes place in 1961) for the looming future of 2017 (a date that may dawn before the title premieres in certain international markets). With production delayed so German could put the finishing touches on his father’s posthumous masterpiece, Hard to Be a God, this indictment on the decaying cultural state of Russia tuned exactly one hundred years after the Russian Revolution is a critique as obscurely damning as it elusively oblique in tone. Some spectacular imagery providing a backdrop for overly pointed dialogue manages to settle under your skin despite its sometimes mystifying qualities.Read More »

  • Andrey Nekrasov – Bunt. Delo Litvinenko aka Poisoned by Polonium (2007)

    Documentary2001-2010Andrey NekrasovRussia

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    “If anything should happen to me, I beg you to show this tape to the whole world.” On November 23rd, 2006, these words, spoken on camera by exiled former KGB and FSB (post communist Russia’s dreaded new secret police) agent Alexander “Sasha” Litvinenko, became a gruesome self-fulfilling prophecy. After an agonizingly painful ordeal, Litvinenko succumbed to what was allegedly radiation poisoning from a lethal dose of toxic Polonium-210, surreptitiously slipped into his tea during a London meeting with two FSB ex-colleagues three weeks earlier. In Poisoned by Polonium:Read More »

  • Sergei Solovyov – Assa (1988)

    Drama1981-1990ArthouseSergei SolovyovUSSR

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    Quote:
    The film is set in Crimea during the winter in the mid eighties. A young musician falls for mobster’s young mistress. The parallel story line involves an 18th century assassination plot.

    “The face of Russia as it was in the 80’s. The image of the young generation through the face of gloomy regime. Love story of 2 young is stuck between the old norms of Soviet union and the new rising power of organized mafia, two ingredients which will affect the collapse of the 70 years socialist power. The young generation demand changes, and immediately but it’s being suffocated by both sides of the old order, and the movie ends with legendary Viktor Tsoi’s song “Changes” which became an anthem after Tsoi’s tragic death in a car accident.”Read More »

  • Andrey Benkendorf – Neskolko lyubovnykh istoriy AKA Several love stories (1994) (DVD)

    1991-2000Andrey BenkendorfEroticaRomanceUkraine

    Description: Erotic comedy based on the works of Giovanni Boccaccio, Francesco Grazzini Lasca, Agnolo Firenzuola, which humorously describes the amorous adventures of Italians of the Renaissance. Young beautiful wife cleverly fooled his old foolish men, finding ingenious ways to meet lovers …

    Rare and funny good erotic film.Read More »

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