Mayya Bulgakova

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Yuri Illyenko, the master Ukrainian cinematographer who shot Sergei Paradjanov’s Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (1965) and directed the long-banned A Spring for the Thirsty (1965) and The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (1968), based this striking 1990 allegorical film on stories by Paradjanov that were inspired by his long sojourns in prison. The film was shot at the prison where Paradjanov was confined, using contemporary prisoners as extras, and it might be said that the documentary and poetic-symbolic aspects of this movie are equally germane to its overall impact. Three days before his sentence is to end, a prisoner (Victor Solovyov) escapes and hides out inside a giant hammer and sickle that borders the prison grounds, where he is discovered and nursed back to health by a beautiful woman (Liudmyla Yefymenko, Illyenko’s wife) who becomes his lover. One of the first independent Soviet productions, partially financed in Sweden and Canada, the film tells its story with a minimum of dialogue and very striking imagery. – Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago ReaderRead 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 »

“”People living near a by-station, sincerely envied passengers of the passing trains. Arina, a homely lonely woman of about 40 was a cook at the station. Once the pointsman Gomozov dropped in to see her in the kitchen. The lonely man had recently lost his family and asked her to sew a couple of shirts for him. And then he asked her to come to his place in the evening to have some tea and talk just out of boredom. Arina left him at daybreak. But soon people at the station learnt about their relationship…”” kinoglaz.frRead More »