Russian monk Grigori Rasputin rises to power, which corrupts him along the way. His sexual perversions and madness ultimatly leads to his gruesome assasination.
Two Soviet partisans leave their starving band to get supplies from a nearby farm. The Germans have reached the farm first, so the pair must go on a journey deep into occupied territory, a voyage that will also take them deep into their souls.
"Belorussian Station" is a Soviet drama directed by Andrei Smirnov, completed in 1969 and released in 1971 after censorship delays due to its critical portrayal of post-war Soviet society and veterans' challenges. The film revolves around four former soldiers who reunite 25 years after World War...
Matyora is a small village on a beautiful island with the same name. The existence of the village is threatened with flooding by the construction of a dam. This is the story of the inhabitants of Matyora and their farewell to their homeland.
Various dwellers of the Russian forest: Leshiy (forest goblin), Vodyanoy (water spirit), Ovinni (barn spirit) Domovoy (house spirit), Anchutka (gremlin) and Rusalka (mermaid) meet at Baba Yaga's chicken-legged hut and receive an esteemed guest who appears from nowhere. They gather around one...
Two young directors adapted the short stories of two Russian authors whose works had been banned for decades, and so their film ended up in the censor’s vault as well – for twenty years. Both tales look back to the post-revolutionary era: 'Angel' (Olesha) speaks tragically of the brutality and...
Two middle-aged doctors and longtime friends reunite after a long separation and find themselves in a love triangle. Pyotr, Sasha, and Katya feel that life has passed them by. They seek spiritual salvation in a cruel modern world.
1914, Imperial Russia. A group of Ukrainian peasants searching for a better life in the Taurida steppe end up working at the landholding of the aristocratic Falz-Fein family. Friends Vustya and Hanna are courted by a revolutionary and the landowner's son, both rising their hopes and dreams.
A Soviet dam project means that many old Ukrainian villages will end up under water. There are conflicts between the dam engineers and villagers who don't want to move.
This 1999 program, broadcast on the Russian television channel Kultura, features an introduction by filmmaker Elem Klimov and film critic Irina Rubanova to an interview with director Larisa Shepitko that was recorded just after the 1978 Berlin International Film Festival.
The Homeland of Electricity, Larisa Shepitko's adaptation of an Andrei Platonov story, was one of three short films collected in an omnibus work (Beginning of an Unknown Era) commissioned to honor the 50th Anniversary of the October Revolution. Censors eventually shelved the film and it would not...
