USSR

The film reflects the period of the “cold war” of the early 1950s. In one of the countries of Eastern Europe, the construction of a new state system comes up against active resistance. An anti-democratic conspiracy is maturing: at the instigation of the ambassador, an assassination attempt against the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic, the Communist Gannu Licht, is being organized. The Soviet Union helps the communists and detachments of armed workers arrest the conspirators.Read More »

The film is based on the eponymous book by Valery Osipov. Four geologists are searching for diamonds in the wilderness of Siberia. After a long and tiresome journey they manage to find their luck and put the diamond mine on the map. The map must be delivered back to Moscow. But on the day of their departure a terrible forest fire wreaks havoc, and the geologists get trapped in the woods.Read More »

In this Russian adventure, a young peasant proves himself smarter than a wily pair of wolves. The trouble begins when he is assigned to hunt and kill them. Since they are not easily shot, he decides to take a different tack and let the creatures get to know and trust him. The locals begin to mistrust the lad’s motives and think that he may be a little off. Fortunately, he proves himself by sneaking into the wolves’ den, taking a cub, and then killing the parents when they come back.
Sandra Brennan (allmovie.com)Read More »

quote from Amazon user: A complement I say, as this not being complete (well, I’d better say severely truncated) it cannot be your sole Boris in a collection; necessary I add, because it preserved a sizable portion of the title part, as portrayed by one of its foremost exponents ever, the great russian bass Alexander Pirogov. This incompleteness is only implied but not clearly stated in the disc’s box, which should advise would-be purchasers. So what you get is some kind of “extended highlights” of this, arguably the greatest of russian operas and certainly the most popular. It is a film by Vera Stroieva, made in 1954 as part of a project dear to soviet authorities of putting into film both the lives of Russia’s greatest artists and adaptations of their works, to “educate the masses” and of course not being entirely without some ideological hints (or rather more than mere hints).Read More »

This TV miniseries is based on the book “La légende et les aventures héroïques, joyeuses et glorieuses d’Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak au pays de Flandres et ailleurs”, by belgian XIX century author Charles de Coaster, which, in turn is based on the popular German renaissance text “Ein kurzweiliges Buch von Till Eulenspiegel aus dem Lande Braunschweig”, by Hermann Bote. The story is set at the time of religious wars and turmoils following the protestant reformation and the hero fights for the freedom of his country from Spanish occupation and from the holy inquisition. The fist parts of the film are devoted to showing the atmosphere of oppression in the Netherlands at the time, with people being reported to the inquisition by envious neighbors and burned at the stake on flimsy excuses, when the real goal is for the king to get hold of their riches.Read More »

Film-maker Vladimir Yerofeyev (1898-1940) was a pioneer of expedition cinema in the Soviet Union, advocating for increased attention and investment in edifying non-fiction films made to win the interest of broad audiences. Pamir. Roof of the World, 1927, is his second feature film, and the first resulting from an expedition (his debut that same year, Za poliarnym krugom [Beyond the Arctic Circle] was a co-edited compilation film). In summer 1927, a trek to the mountainous Pamir region, known as the “Roof of the World”, in present-day Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, was organized by the Sovkino studio in co-operation with the Geological Committee. Yerofeyev worked with prominent geologist Dmitrii Nalivkin and ethnographer Mikhail Andreyev; both scholars had extensively researched the area and contributed to the planning for the crew’s journey.Read More »

Ground control has been receiving mysterious transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is dispatched to investigate, he experiences the same strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his consciousness. With Solaris, the legendary Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky created a brilliantly original science-fiction epic, adapted from the famous novel by Stanislas Lem. Much more than a sci-fi film, Solaris is a meditation that challenges our conceptions about love, truth, and humanity itself.Read More »

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.Read More »

Quote:
The Killers is a 1956 student film by the Soviet and Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky and his fellow students Marika Beiku and Aleksandr Gordon. The film is based on the short story “The Killers” by Ernest Hemingway, written in 1927. It was Tarkovsky’s first film, produced when he was a student at the State Institute of Cinematography.Read More »