Russian

Plot:
In spring 1938 in the mountains in the north of Chile a fiery UFO, later named “Chilean Sphere “, fell down. The investigation of this episode, made by a film crew, has led to a sensational discovery. It appeared that before the Second World War (in the thirties) in the USSR a secret space program had been developed. The Soviet scientists and military authorities managed to launch the first spacecraft 23 years prior to Jury Gagarin’s flight! “The First on the Moon” tells about everyday life, heroic deeds and tragedy of the first group of the Soviet cosmonauts. It is the first Russian film shot in a very rare genre ‘mockumentary’ or ‘documentary fiction’.Read More »

This little-seen and little-discussed film combines animation with self-reflexive, live action segments to embody the anarchic, satiric spirit of the poet and playwright Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930). The film also showcases Sergei Yuktevich’s fondness for formal experimentation. It is nominally adapted from Mayakovsky’s play “The Bedbug” and his screenplay “Forget All About the Fireplace.”Read More »

Quote:
“MILES OF FIRE,” which opened Saturday at the Cameo, is decidedly not one of the better Soviet-made imports. It should have been, considering all the zing, the picturesqueness and, especially lately, the human cameos the alert Russians have been applying to their war dramas.

This Mosfilm Production, in particular, should at least have streaked like the wind in describing how a few carriage-borne Bolshevik civilians and soldiers race to a friendly town through the enemy-held countryside. But, generally, it jogs.Read More »

The life and love of Anton P. Chekhov at the crucial point when Чайка (Seagull) is to be premiered in St. Petersburg. The French and sometimes Russian title points the relation with Lika Mizinova, inspiration for the main character of the play.Read More »

The Moorish general Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality it is all part of the scheme of a bitter ensign named Iago.

Review by The Little Songbird @IMDb:
I have always loved the poetry and intensity of Shakespeare’s dialogue in Othello, and I have also found the play one of his more dramatically concise ones. This Othello from Russia is excellent, and very interesting as well. It is handsome to look at, the photography flows nicely and the locations are splendid. The symbolic palette to emphasise Othello’s contrasts between physical and temperamental is also interestingly used. The film is smartly written and intelligently adapted and it is directed beautifully by Sergei Yutkevitch.Read More »

Quote:
This is, in essence, a Soviet rendition of Star Trek with a teenage crew. The story revolves around a project to send a manned spaceflight to Alpha Cassiopeia to investigate a signal received from there, and, due to the relative slowness of the fastest available engines, the trip is predicted to take something around 27 years in one direction. Therefore, a crew of teenagers is recruited – in hope than when they reach their destination, they will all be aged around 40 and capable of carrying out whatever adult actions necessary to establish First Contact. But, as always, things go awry… The storyline is split up into two parts – this is the first, dealing with the foundation of the plot and the ship’s launch.Read More »

Tatyana Prokofievna is an ageing woman with a diva’s behavior, but her life is uneventful, ordinary and dull. To escape the everyday slumber she seeks companionship of young men. She provides shelter and becomes involved in their problems. Her ex-boyfriend has married a younger woman. Tatyana is forced to keep her loneliness hidden because of her role as hostess.

Won grand prix “Golden Leopard” at the Locarno International Film Festival, 1990Read More »

Also known as At Great Cost, this adaptation of a story by Mikhailo Kotsyubinsky—a Ukrainian writer executed in the Stalinist purges but rehabilitated in 1955—anticipates the wave of Sixties poetic cinema in its focus on star-crossed lovers and its celebration of nature. Set in the 1930s, the film begins as Solomia is forced into an arranged marriage. She escapes with her lover, Ostep, and for a while it looks as if the fugitives will make a clean getaway. Yet eventually they come to the attention of the police, who mistake them for being part of a gang of thieves. One of the major figures of the earlier current of socialist realism, Donskoy, in one of his first post-Stalin era productions, here loosens his style to reveal a delicate romanticism rarely felt in his earlier films.Read More »

Plot: A love triangle emerges around a rock and roll musician, his protege, and his wife in 1980s Russia.

The plot is based on little-known facts of Viktor Tsoi’s (Teo Yoo) life and unfolds in the summer of the early 1980s in Leningrad. The main storyline of the film tells the story of the relationship between the 19-year-old Tsoi, 26-year-old Mike Naumenko (Roman Bilyk), and his wife Natalia (Irina Starshenbaum), as well as the formation of the Leningrad Rock Club and the recording of Tsoi’s first album.Read More »