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Kazakhstan, the 50s. The main heroine of the film is a nine-year-old girl Alyonka, who is sent to town by her parents to study. The girl meets various companions on her long way. Some of them are telling about the story of their settlement or their attempt to settle in this Far East.Read More »
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Heat was Shepitko’s diploma feature, her extraordinary talent underlined by its unprecedented success, winning prizes at the Leningrad and Karlovy Vary Film Festivals. It was also made in gruelling conditions on the barren steppes, the young director falling ill and having to direct from a stretcher. The story fuses serious political drama and cowboy showdown as an idealistic high school graduate goes to work on a state farm, only to clash with its authoritarian, Stalinist leader.Read More »
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Aleksei German’s singular, multithreaded drama My Friend Ivan Lapshin offers a uniquely stylized look at life in Russia as the flaws of Communism were just beginning to show. Set in a provincial Russian village during the 1930s, the film at times recalls the autobiographical work of Terence Davies or Woody Allen’s Radio Days. Like the work of those directors, German’s film filters most experiences through the eyes of a child, although the child/narrator in this particular movie is not present in the majority of the scenes. Read More »
A psychological thriller based on the novel by Agatha Christie. Ten strangers are forced to come face to face with their dark pasts after receiving invitation to an isolated island off the coast of England.Read More »
Nikita Nekrasov is a scientist, a theoretical physicist who studies our world and other possible worlds. He refuses to make a choice between mathematics and physics, between one woman and another, as he ponders the existence of the multi-universe. At scientific conferences, attended by eminent foreign scientists and a rising younger generation of physicists alike, Nekrasov gets carried away debating the beauty of string theory. He attempts to explain to all of his women – Katya, the librarian, Zoya, the scientific secretary, Svetalana, the head of department – about the theory of his own polygamy, and the possibility of having enough feelings to satisfy everyone.Read More »
Within the top secret Institute of Physics Problems, the scientist Nikita Nekrasov is visited by his wife and small children. While away from his family the physicist has managed to fall in love with other women. In open conversations with his spouse – in the bedroom, the dining room, and while out walking – he attempts to convince her of the legitimacy of polygamous relationships, and to test the limits of her unconditional love.Read More »
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“What’s at stake when a group of humans gather in an isolated location?” That’s one of the questions that drove acclaimed French filmmaker and artist Clément Cogitore to a remote part of the Siberian Taïga forest, where two families, the Braguines and the Kilines, live in autonomy and bitter rivalry on the Yenissei river, 450 miles from the nearest village. Their children’s shared playground: an island protected from the bears. With striking images and dramaturgy, Cogitore creates a story about childhood, forests, and failed utopias. Braguino is a brilliant documentary, both enchanting and troubling, at times taking the shape of an ethnographic film, at others that of a Western.Read More »
It is 1956. Dau is a distinguished Soviet scientist who meets up with the love of his youth – Maria, a Greek actress – during her three day visit to Moscow. They haven’t seen each other for 25 years. Dau is a successful and prosperous scientist, but feels excruciatingly dissatisfied with his family life. Through Maria he hopes to regain lost harmony and beauty, but reality intrudes when Nora, Dau’s wife, returns home.Read More »
Maxim and his comrades-in-arms are participating in top-secret experiments into the creation of a new man. The employees of the secret Institute are characterised by everything Maxim detests: alcoholism, depravity, weak will, loss of ideals, and lack of faith in the future. Vika, one of the waitresses in the Institute’s cafeteria, falls in love with the young communist, though she is scared by his fascination with eugenics and his violent tendencies. Vika hopes that her passion and tenderness will soften Maxim, while the state security agents keep a watchful eye on their developing relationship.Read More »