Russian

Dostoevsky seen through the prism of his relationships, and his struggles with poverty, trial, exile and imprisonment in Omsk, Siberia, writings, gambling.Read More »

This excellent low-key documentary records the daily life of an elderly blind man in Russia. He spends his days at home in a tiny flat making bags out of string. His only companion is a cat, which persists in unraveling the man’s bags and tangling the thread. Once the man has completed a set of string bags, he goes out to the street-corner and tries to give them away to passersby for free. Sadly, no one wants them, even though they are much nicer than the grimy plastic bags commonly used on that street.Read More »

Film memoir of the Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko about his wartime childhood, when he alone reached the station of the Siberian winter, where he was waiting for relatives. The road was unusually long, cold, hungry and angry.Read More »

Summary:
World War II. German high command accumulates enormous forces for the assault. Soviet troops commanded by General Muravyov repulse the enemy attacks. Soviet army scouts find out the exact day and time of the decisive offensive. Muravyov is determined to forestall the Nazis and plasters the enemy with fire. All is quiet. Will the fascist troops weakened by the surprise fire begin their offensive or put off the attack?Read More »

SYNOPSIS: On an amateur arts festival the little boy, accompanying itself on a bayan, sings a song about Moscow … In a basis of a plot of film — the story of director of a vocational school about history of old bayan. Belonged once to the experienced worker who has lost during demonstration of 1905, the instrument has visited many hands before has got to children.Read More »

Fraud has always been a burning issue. The story could have taken place in any era. But the very title – “The Doll”, that is, a fake wad of money – points to our times. The character in the film is a hilarious sadist. It’s a perversion of the psyche that borders on insanity: “I hate my ex-wife so much that I’ll pretend to ennoble her and actually play a trick on her.”Read More »

Quote:
Yekaterina Artemovna (Natalia Negoda), forty-five, has a hard life. She lives in a small mining town where she works as a librarian and, like her only friend and colleague, rents a little room in a project. She has difficulties making ends meet on her meagre salary, which is often paid late, and sells off some of the library’s books illegally in a nearby station. One day, a man with a strong sense of civic duty, wearing a naval uniform, returns one of these books to the library, apparently without recognising it was Yekaterina who had actually sold him the book.Read More »

Synopsis:
Two men and a woman meet in a Moscow bar and weave extravagant lies about their lives and professions, setting in motion a ruthless, relentless three-lane journey into the dark, secret corners of modern Russia.Read More »

Zoya is the inspirational true story of one of Russia’s most beloved national heroines. During the Nazi siege of Moscow, a fearless 18-year-old girl named Zoya risked her life as a partisan fighter. Captured by the Germans, Zoya endured unspeakable tortures at the hands of the Gestapo but still refused to betray her comrades. Even on the gallows, Zoya defiantly spoke out against the Nazis and everything they stood for. In a series of flashbacks, this film re-creates not merely Zoya’s death, but also her life. Galina Vodiantiskaya plays the title character as an adult, while Katia Skvortsova enacts the younger Zoya. The film’s English-language version was prepared by Howard Fast, who was later egregiously blacklisted for his “pro-Red” activities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »