Oleg Basilashvili

Master and Margarita (2005) is a Menippean film based on the eponymous book by Mikhail A. Bugakov. Set in Moscow under Stalin it has several story-lines that are intertwined. The sacrifices of Master (Galibin), a talented author of a manuscript about the biblical Pontius Pilate, and Master’s muse – Margarita (Kovalchuk), are paralleled by the biblical story of Yeshua in Yerushalaim, and the deceit of the cowardly ambiguous Pilate (Lavrov), whose character alludes to a Soviet leader. The reality is distorted by Satan Woland (Basilashvili), and his lieutenants, who are manipulating public events and people’s lives by pushing the buttons of human weaknesses and sins. Margarita taps into Woland’s power as she becomes the Queen of the Satan’s Ball. She turns into a witch to save Master. Some characters allude to Soviet leaders: Lenin, Stalin, Beria, and their entourage.Read More »

Synopsis:
Fantasmagoria mingles seamlessly into reality in this comic film. Oleg is being two-timed by his wife. Fortunately he is advised by well-known poisoners from history, from Caligula to Lucretia Borgia.Read More »

An engineer in charge of the production line of a factory in Moscow is sent to a small town to try to specify the distributor the new dimensions of a mechanic part they need. But in this town everybody seems to be crazy (a secretary who works naked, a group of people take the engineer as a rock & roll player, etc) and, in addition, this man is witness of a suicide, so he is trapped inside the town.Read More »

Summary:
Platon Ryabinin, a pianist, is traveling by train to a distant town of Griboedov to visit his father. He gets off to have lunch during a twenty minute stop at Zastupinsk railway station. He meets Vera, a waitress, after he refuses to pay her for the disgusting food he doesn’t even touch and misses his train due to police investigation of the incident. His passport is then accidentally taken away from him by Andrei, Vera’s fiancé, and his money is stolen as he waits for the next train to Griboedov. Vera learns that Platon is about to get sentenced and sent to prison in the Far East for a car accident he isn’t guilty for. During the few days that Platon has to spend in Zastupinsk he and Vera develop feelings for each other…
– Written by Denis ChebikinRead More »

To earn money for married life, a young engaged man takes a job as an engineer on a privately operated oil drilling rig in the far North of Russia. A friend’s letter brings the sad news that his fiancée has already married someone else and in desperation he quits his job and flies back to Moscow. There all his vast efforts to win her back seem in vain…Read More »

Synopsis:

A gentle, bittersweet tragicomedy, Autumn Marathon is about a middle-aged translator, Andrei Buzykin (Oleg Basilashvili), whose almost pathological niceness has trapped him in a seemingly endless series of awkward situations: his inability to turn anyone down has left him juggling a wife and mistress, on top of vast amounts of additional work usually done as unpaid favours for friends and students that’s constantly interfering with his own projects to the point where his career is put at risk.

And because he can’t bear to hurt anyone, he’s always taking the easy way out – which invariably means constructing a vast edifice of lies that he can’t possibly keep track of, which has the equally inevitable side-effect of turning a fundamentally decent if weak-willed man into what looks like the epitome of a philandering boor. Half the time, his excuses are entirely genuine – he really did help his Danish friend Bill Hansen (Norbert Kuchinke) at a drying-out clinic, and stayed up all night with his less talented colleague Varvara (Galina Volchek) to help her on a difficult translation, but this counts for little when he’s so widely disbelieved. The title refers to his regular early morning jogging sessions with Bill – again, he’d much rather be doing something else, like staying in bed, but how can he possibly say no?Read More »