Russian
see all genres ›Alert to film's value as both art and propaganda from early on, the Soviet Union oversaw one of the great cinematic industries in the world during the silent era, turning out narrative and documentary features influential around the world. The Stalinist era's derogatory effect on expression eroded that stature until a new wave of talent proclaimed itself during a Cold War "thaw" from the late 1950s onward. Today's Russian filmmakers mix older high-art traditions with brashly commercial new ones.
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Genres / International / Eurasian / Russian
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The Last Bolshevik
Based on the life and work of the Russian film director Alexander Medvedkin, THE LAST BOLSHEVIK is a tribute from one filmmaker to another. An archeological expedition into film history that reveals new cinematic treasures, the film prompts a reflection on the relation between...Watch Movie
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Happy People
With HAPPY PEOPLE: A YEAR IN THE TAIGA, Werner Herzog takes viewers on yet another unforgettable journey into remote and extreme natural landscapes. The acclaimed filmmaker presents this visually stunning documentary about the people living in the heart of the Siberian Taiga. Deep in the...Watch Movie
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Elena
Winner of Cannes' Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize, ELENA is a gripping, modern twist on the classic noir thriller. Sixty-ish spouses Vladimir and Elena uneasily share his palatial Moscow apartment (he's a still-virile, wealthy businessman; she's his dowdy former nurse who has clearly...Watch Movie
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Nostalghia
NOSTALGHIA is Andrei Tarkovsky's brooding late masterpiece, a darkly poetic vision of exile. It was the first of his features to be made outside of Russia, the home to which he would never return. Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word "nostalghia" conveys "the love for your homeland and...Watch Movie
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I am Cuba
Started only a week after the Cuban missile crisis and designed to be Cuba's answer to both Sergei Eisenstein's propaganda masterpiece, BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, and Jean-Luc Godard's freewheeling romance, BREATHLESS, I AM CUBA turned out to be something quite unique (a wildly schizophrenic...Watch Movie
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The Dry Valley
DRY VALLEY is the first full feature film by Alexandra Strelyanaya. The film is based on the famous novel written by Nobel Prize laureate Ivan Bunin. This story unites the destinies of the landowners and their servants, and is considered to be one of the most complete portraits of the Russian...Watch Movie
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The Rape of Europa
THE RAPE OF EUROPA is an epic journey through seven countries, into the violent whirlwind of fanaticism, greed, and warfare that threatened to wipe out the artistic heritage of Europe. For twelve long years, the Nazis looted and destroyed art on a scale unprecedented in...Watch Movie
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Elektro Moskva
Welcome to a weird and definitely wired world of avant-garde rock musicians, DIY circuit benders, vodka-swilling dealers and urban archaeologists/collectors, all fascinated with obsolete Soviet-era electronic synthesizers: primitive and ungainly beasts like the Polyvox, ESKO, Yunost and the...Watch Movie
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The Shareholder
THE SHAREHOLDER’s withering depiction of American capitalism has an ideological tint but its fluid comic-book style of animation and incisive satire of consumer culture are a cut above mere propaganda. An upwardly mobile proletariat is given a symbolic share of stock in the omnipresent arms...Watch Movie
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Silent Souls
One of the most acclaimed films of 2011, SILENT SOULS is a breathtakingly beautiful road-movie masterpiece. After the sudden death of his wife, tough guy Miron asks taciturn writer Aist to accompany him on a long journey to dispose of her remains according to the rituals of the Merya people (an...Watch Movie
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Stone
If ever a film replicated the state of dreaming, STONE does. Which is not to say it is, in the classical sense, surreal; but it has the flow and fugitive feeling of a half-remembered reverie, full of mysteries, portents, inexplicable happenings, and chimerical objects. Set in (and filmed in the...Watch Movie
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Pinhas
Pinhas and his mother are new immigrants from Russia. While his mother barely makes a living working night shifts, she devotes her spare time to the affair she has with a married man. On the third floor lives a religious family, and Pinhas is drawn to their warmth and unity. There he meets a girl...Watch Movie
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The Edge
THE EDGE is a story of suppressed passion and destructive obsession set in a remote post WWII Siberian village, sparked by the arrival of Ignat, an emotionally and physically damaged Soviet tank commander with an obsession for steam engines. His self destructive streak causes increasing havoc...Watch Movie
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Save and Protect
A retelling of Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" as a surreal story of universal suffering, the film emphasizes the heroine's internal transformation as she slowly loses her grip on reality. Her fascination with rich clothing and her almost childish desire to be lost in...Watch Movie
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Attention! Wolves!
With shades of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER, this unusual Soviet animation blends symbolic allegory and documentary photographs to warn against the persistent threat of fascism. A feral boy is found in the woods the same day that the Nuremberg Trials’...Watch Movie
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Girl Model
Despite a lack of obvious similarities between Siberia and Tokyo, a thriving model industry connects these distant regions. GIRL MODEL follows two protagonists involved in this industry: Ashley, a deeply ambivalent model scout who scours the Siberian countryside looking for fresh faces to send to...Watch Movie
