Russia

Synopsis:
Six-year-old Vanya Solntsev lives in a desolate and rundown orphanage run by an alcoholic headmaster. When a wealthy Italian couple wanting to adopt selects him, the other children, especially his good friend, Anton, envy his fortune and name him The Italian. However, when a grief-stricken mother of another boy commits suicide after returning to reclaim her son and discovering he is no longer there, Vanya fears the same fate looms for him. With the aid of some of the older boys, he retrieves his file from the office safe and learns the address of the children’s home where he previously lived. Certain the records there will identify his mother, he sets off on his quest with the help of an older girl.Read More »

A day in the life of a comic book artist and his family in post-Soviet Russia. While suffering from the flu, Petrov is carried by his friend Igor on a long walk, drifting in and out of fantasy and reality.Read More »

Belorussia, summer 1942. The war has moved on, far off to the east. The life of a small town where the German authorities of the region have set themselves up is getting back to “normal”. The Germans study Russian, flirt with the local girls, the women wash their clothes and feed them. They have to carry on somehow… But suddenly the teenage son of the film’s heroine decides to run away to the partisans and blows up a German train so that they could accept him. He gets caught and the Germans have to execute him in order “to teach others a lesson”. That’s the order and it can’t be disobeyed. The Germans know that this execution will bring an end to their peaceful lives. The local commandant understands this better than anyone as he is already involved in a close relationship with the boy’s mother. But he can’t ignore an order from his commanders …Read More »

Plot:
Innokentii Volodin, a diplomat, makes a telephone call he feels obliged by conscience to make, even though he knows he could be arrested. His call was taped and the NKVD seek to identify who made the call.
The sharashka prisoners or zeks, work on technical projects to assist state security agencies and generally pander to Stalin’s increasing paranoia. While most are aware of how much better off they are than “regular” gulag prisoners (some of them having come from gulags themselves), some are also conscious of the overwhelming moral dilemma of working to aid a system that is the cause of so much suffering. As Lev Rubin is given the task of identifying the voice in the recorded phone call, he examines printed spectrographs of the voice and compares them with recordings of Volodin and five other suspects…Read More »

13-year-old Masha grows in the 90s in Russia between the boxing ring and the street. Her friends occasionally kill and rob people. The whole town hates and fears them, but for Masha they are the best people in the world who love and protect her. She sings jazz and dreams of becoming a singer. One day, Masha finds out who her friends really are and what they have done to her life and family. Having matured, she leaves her small hometown for Moscow, trying to break away from the past. But it overtakes her and brings her back to the place where her childhood passed away.Read More »

Quote:
Dolce opens to a clinical biographical overview of writer and poet Toshio Shimao Dolce(1917-1986) as the narrator (Aleksandr Sokurov) thumbs through a family photo album, describing Shimao’s privileged life as the heir of an affluent merchant family, before enlisting in the Japanese military as a kamikaze pilot during the Pacific War. Stationed on a remote southern island while awaiting orders to be deployed for his suicide mission, Shimao falls in love with a local young woman from a prominent samurai family named Miho and, in a fortuitous twist of fate, is ordered to abandon his campaign as Japan moves closer towards conceding defeat. Toshio and Miho adjust to postwar life by settling in Kobe and starting a family-run business of publishing Shimao’s literary work.Read More »

Quote:
Aleksander Sokurov brings the treasures of the Hermitage back into the light by making films about artists and their paintings. He has chosen the painter Hubert Robert, who spent a long time in Italy, and whose preference was for creating ancient ruined landscapes and naturalistic portrayals of times past. He was successful with the wealthy, who bought his works from him. The camera pans across the paintings while Sokurov speaks of a happy era, when the artist was at one with the spirit of the times, and agreed with the taste of his clients. Just how far removed from us this is, is shown by pictures of a “Nô” performance which are inter-cut on the screen. No words are necessary to describe what everybody knows todayRead More »

Plot
“Sisters” focuses on two step-siblings, thirteen-year-old Sveta, a sullen tomboy (played by Oksana Akinshina from Lilya 4-ever), and eight-year-old Dina, a spoilt little princess. When their gangster father, recently released from jail, refuses to handover stolen money to a rival gang, they threaten to kidnap his youngest daughter. The two girls find they must bury their differences and go on the run.Read More »

A young Jewish man pretends to be Iranian to avoid being executed in a concentration camp.
(imdb)Read More »