A fascinating and human portrayal of a once-famous fighter pilot and loyal Stalinist named Nadezhda Petrovna. Now a 41-year-old provincial schoolmistress, she has so internalized the military ideas of service and obedience that she cannot adjust to life in peacetime.

Krylya.1966.SUBBED.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.x264-CMYK.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 25 min
Size: 	2.81 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1440x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	4 500 kb/s
BPP: 	0.121
Audio
#1:  	Russian 2.0ch AAC LC @ 256 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/B6FE47D0FF80C1C/Krylya.1966.SUBBED.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.x264-CMYK.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English (Hardcoded)

The post Larisa Shepitko – Krylya (Крылья) AKA Wings (1966) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Two Soviet partisans leave their starving band to get supplies from a nearby farm. The Germans have reached the farm first, so the pair must go on a journey deep into occupied territory, a voyage that will also take them deep into their souls.

The.Ascent.1977.1080p.BluRay.FLAC1.0.x264-PTer.mkv

General
Container: Matroska
Runtime: 1 h 49 min
Size: 15.6 GiB
Video
Codec: x264
Resolution: 1480x1080 
Aspect ratio: 1.370
Frame rate: 23.976 fps
Bit rate: 20.1 Mb/s
BPP: 0.525
Audio
#1: Russian 1.0ch FLAC @ 272 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/3DE0AECDBB42B44/The.Ascent.1977.1080p.BluRay.FLAC1.0.x264-PTer.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Larisa Shepitko – Voskhozhdenie AKA The Ascent (1977) (HD) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

During the most liberal period of the Khrushchev regime, Grigori Chukrai, director of the classic Ballad of a Soldier, presided over an “experimental studio” dedicated to nurturing new talents. The studio was closed after it produced the three-part Beginning of an Unknown Era, conceived as a memorial for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. The film was shelved and to this day the negative is reported lost. However, a print of Andrei Smirnov’s episode Angel and Larissa Shepitko’s Homeland of Electricity survived – both films were premiered at the 1987 Moscow Film Festival. It is understandable that the authorities might have considered Angel and Homeland of Electricity inappropriate for trumped-up celebrations of the Revolution. Both show an exhausted, famished Russia, enduring fratricide and deprivation in the aftermath of the Revolution. Angel is taken from the first published story by Yury Olesha. A small masterpiece, Angel pays stylistic homage to early Wajda and Tarkovsky in dramatizing the fate of a small group of fleeing Reds caught behind White lines. Just a minor incident in an enormous conflict, but the sense of Russian tragedy conveyed in this short film is indelible. Shepitko’s film is taken from a story by Andrei Platonov, one of Russia’s greatest writers. Even more than Angel, Homeland of Electricity is a startling succession of black-and-white images – withered peasants on a parched land-recalling the most expressive cinematography of the silent days. A worthy tribute to Shepitko’s film school mentor, Alexander Dovzhenko.

— Tom Luddy, Pacific Film Archive,

source:bampfa

1.64GB | 1h 11m | 768×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/2D060FB7A861704/Nachalo_nevedomogo_veka__Beginning_of_an_Unknown_Era__(Andrey_Smirnov_&_Larisa_Shepitko,_1967).mkv

Language:Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Andrey Smirnov & Larisa Shepitko – Nachalo nevedomogo veka AKA Beginning of an Unknown Era (1967) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the winter cold, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.

Letterboxd review by Lara Pop ★★★★½:
It rarely gets bleaker than The Ascent. Larisa Shepitko’s tale of perseverance in the face of imminent death surprised me on several counts. For the first half of the movie, I couldn’t figure out the significance of the title. If anything, Shepitko presents its exact opposite. The barren, snow-covered landscape, where death lurks in every grinding step man takes, devours the movie in its all-consuming white death. The shaky camera movement enhances every sound made in the white silence as the camera zooms in on man’s face and outlines the thin crust of ice scratching his cheek with its cold tendrils, stretching, reaching, with one goal in mind: to get to the innermost layer: the spirit; and to break it. It is a tableau of a frostbitten feast, an icy infusion of a deathly descent, straight into the vein. I couldn’t figure out why I was watching a film named its exact opposite.

In the second half, however, the movie takes an unexpected turn and clears the white fog surrounding its title. Director Shepitko’s focus does not stray from depicting the mental descent of the two main characters but is supplemented by the central shift to the symbolic-spiritual connotation their actions and behavior convey. Shepitko contrasts the self-sacrificing, altruistic mindset of Sotnikov with the survivalist worldview of Rybak, and paints an alternative rendition of the biblical Jesus-Judas tale, portraying Judas’s betrayal before Christ’s crucifixion and his torn consciousness afterwards.

The ending cuts like a double-edged sword. Throughout the film, Rybak/Judas is trying to escape death; in the last frames, however, death beckons him with the promise of salvation his soul so desperately yearns for. But here, unlike in the Bible, he is not able to commit suicide upon learning about Christ’s crucifixion but stays trapped in the cage of his own guilty conscience. His last agony-filled scream in the movie reinforces his pain as the camera once again cuts to the white silence descending on the landscape like a shroud upon man’s corrupted soul.

The descent of Judas’s spirit is counterpoised by the climax: the execution scene which symbolizes Christ’s ascension into heaven. Whereas Judas was not able to, Christ finds salvation in death and sees in the blinding whiteness not the foul glow of man’s soul but the brilliance of heaven.

All the same, never for a moment be fooled by the misleading hopefulness of The Ascent. Here, hope is but a vehicle for seeing the momentary beacon of light, the precarious bridge which allows passage into heaven. But, as we all know, the bridge is severed ever so easily and man remains but a mere traveller trying to find his way in the all-engulfing whiteness.

3.06GB | 1h 49m | 790×576 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/550384948EF179D/Voskhozhdeniye.AKA.The.Ascent.1977.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264.mkv
or
https://tezfiles.com/file/6e492be276e13/Voskhozhdeniye.AKA.The.Ascent.1977.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264.mp4

Language:Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Larisa Shepitko – Voskhozhdeniye AKA The Ascent (1977) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Heat was Shepitko’s diploma feature, her extraordinary talent underlined by its unprecedented success, winning prizes at the Leningrad and Karlovy Vary Film Festivals. It was also made in gruelling conditions on the barren steppes, the young director falling ill and having to direct from a stretcher. The story fuses serious political drama and cowboy showdown as an idealistic high school graduate goes to work on a state farm, only to clash with its authoritarian, Stalinist leader.

Quote:
Shepitko was sent to Kyrgyzstan to produce her VGIK graduate thesis film, possibly in order to stimulate the development of a film industry in that territory. Heat was produced by Kirghizfilm Studios and based on a story by Chinghiz Aitmatov, a Soviet-Kyrgyz author. The film was controversial for its frank portrayal of generational conflicts and won a few domestic prizes. The plot centers on Abakir, a paragon of socialist virtue, and the conflicts he encounters with a younger, freer generation when a young student comes to work on his farm. They clash over the implementation of new agricultural techniques; while Abakir attempts to cull the favor of the state party authorities, the younger man truly believes in the development of the region, though many of his progressive methods clearly don’t work. Nature and landscape dominate the movie: the searing temperatures that scald the land drive the tension of human relationships to the boiling point and dictate farming methods more intensely than any party decree. The heat on set was genuinely severe: Shepitko fainted from heat exhaustion several times, and eventually became so ill that she had to direct from a stretcher carried around set. Though the film is no masterpiece, it contains many elements of Shepitko’s distinctive visual style: unusual low-angle shots of human subjects, black and white film, a shaky handheld camera on follow shots, provocative and thoughtful framing.

Elem Klimov, also a student at VGIK and later a highly respected director in his own right, helped her with the production of Heat; they married in 1963 after production finished.

700MB | 1h 16mn | 640×480 | avi

https://nitroflare.com/view/F14E84875948F4E/_DivX_RUS_-_Subbed_ITA__Znoy_-_La_Calura_(Larisa_Shepitko).AVI
https://nitroflare.com/view/F0264A5A2196B11/DivX_RUS_-_Subbed_ITA_Znoy_-_La_Calura_(Larisa_Shepitko)_-_ENG-2.srt

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:Italian hard subs,English

The post Larisa Shepitko – Znoy (1963) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Peter, a former medical scientist, suddenly quits his cushy job as a doctor at the Russian Embassy in Sweden and returns to Moscow. 3 years ago his team stood on the threshold of a vital break-through in neurosurgery, but the experimental work was cut short when Peter left for Stockholm. Peter tries to pick up the threads of his old life, fails and runs still further away, to a small town in Northern Russia where he takes a job as a district doctor. But the past would not relinquish its hold on him even there.

1.89GB | 1h 31mn | 744×558 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/9B3CB803F8E70E3/Ty.i.ya.AKA.You.and.Me.1971.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English (muxed)

The post Larisa Shepitko – Ty i ya AKA You and Me (1971) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Shepitko graduated from VGIK, where she had studied in the workshop of Alexander Dovzhenko (whom she always referred to as her mentor) and Mikhail Romm in 1963. Her diploma work was Znoi / Heat (1963), made for Kirgizfilm from “The Camel’s Eye”, a story by the Kirgiz writer Chingiz Aitmatov, about a clash of generations in which a middle-aged woman, director of a civil engineering school, yearns for her days as a pilot during World War II and struggles to understand her daughter’s generation. Shepitko’s next project was the short film Rodina elektrichestva / Homeland of Electricity (1967), from the story by Andrei Platonov about the coming of electricity to a Russian village after the Revolution. Frequently compared to the work of her master Dovzhenko, this film, like Andrei Smirnov’s Angel, was shot as part of a portmanteau film, Nachalo nevedomogo veka / The Beginning of an Unknown Century, made to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution. But the films were banned for twenty years, and Rodina elektrichestva surfaced only in 1987, long after Shepitko’s death.In Ty i ya / You and I (1971), a brain surgeon suddenly experiences an identity crisis and goes to Siberia to sort out his life. Shepitko’s greatest achievement is Voskhozhdenie / The Ascent (1976), taken from Vasil Bykau’s story “Sotnikov” and set in German-occupied Belorussia in 1942. This story of the tragic fate of a group of partisans is replete with spiritual strength and religious symbolism. It won the Golden Bear at Berlin in 1977. Shepitko died in a car crash in 1979, after beginning work on a version of Valentin Rasputin’s lament for a Siberian village, “Farewell to Matyora”. The film was completed by her husband, Elem Klimov, as Proschchanie / Farewell (1983). He also directed a short film made in her memory, Larisa (1980).

slant wrote:
The Homeland of Electricity, Larisa Shepitko’s adaptation of an Andrei Platonov story, was one of three short films collected in an omnibus work (Beginning of an Unknown Era) commissioned to honor the 50th Anniversary of the October Revolution. Censors eventually shelved the film and it would not see the light of day until well after Shepitko’s death, during Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika. Any number of things could have offended the post-Thaw powers-that-be, though in Shepitko’s case I’d posit that their concern stemmed primarily from Homeland’s ambivalent tone. In construction the film is clearly pro-Communist: a fresh-faced young engineer comes to a desolate village to introduce the old-world residents to electricity, the film’s not so subtle metaphor (perhaps euphemism) for the ideologies of Lenin, Marx, et al. The engineer builds a pump out of one of the villager’s motorbikes—in theory, it will act as the town’s electrical conduit and irrigation system—and Shepitko lingers over its construction, the sounds of hammer against metal harmonizing into perfect musical tones. Beautiful as the sequence is, its underlying meanings are thuddingly obvious and Shepitko works hard to subvert them. It helps that the director’s striking black-and-white visuals owe a substantial debt to her mentor, Aleksandr Dovzhenko: Despite the film’s Socialist subtexts, the faces of the villagers remain stubbornly specific, every crease and every wrinkle uniquely etched in fleshy stone. Shepitko’s faith in the individual over the collective fosters a burgeoning sense of tension (one extending well beyond the narrative proper) that comes to a head in Homeland’s climax as the engineer and the villagers greet a last-minute miracle—quite literally an opening of the heavens—with uncertain stoicism. Asks Shepitko: How far ingrained the thoughts of man before they usurp the ways of God?

the new york times wrote:
”Homeland of Electricity,” also has an inspirational ending that does not much ease a depressing story. Bolshevik headquarters sends a young engineering student to the drought-stricken village of Verchovka for the job of building a generator that can pump water into the parched fields. The peasants, evidently selected for their harshly weathered faces, look on longingly as he goes about his work. They contribute the family samovars and telescopes to the cause, not useful but a sign of comradeship.

The gush of water, when it finally comes, to the accompaniment of clanging church bells, makes a rousing scene. Unfortunately, a few minutes later, the makeshift pump blows up. As everyone is standing around despondently, a voice is heard expressing hope in the future. Could it be the engine driver’s daughter?

Despite the simplicity of the story, ”Homeland of Electricity” keeps fighting against the rules of Socialist Realism. Through Dimitri Korzhikhin’s camera, the peasants in a religious procession or in their fields become white-on-white mirages. At times, we seem to be in the middle of somebody’s dream. Roman Ledenev’s dissonant score battles reality all the way. The director, Larisa Shepitko, may have invented a new film form: Socialist Unrealism.

https://nitro.download/view/2B598C245A33E30/larissa_shepitko_-_rodina_electrichestva_aka_la_patria_dell’elettricita.avi
https://nitro.download/view/8C73605DE91683F/larissa_shepitko_-_rodina_electrichestva_aka_la_patria_dell

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:Italian (hardsubs),English

The post Larisa Shepitko – Rodina Electrichestva aka The Homeland of Electricity (1967) first appeared on Cinema of the World.