Country girl Nadia moves to the city and becomes a maid in Valya's apartment. Valya, who is a member of the local District Committee, does not know that Nadia fell in love with her currently absent husband, a geologist named Maksim, when he had visited Nadia's village during a recent expedition.
In the old days it was called hypochrondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it's termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai, a teacher of epicly indifferent pupils, has got it, and it's not much fun.
The film is set during the last summer before the Great Patriotic War. Three sisters are coming to stay with their grandmother in the village. They imagine the world as a vast and charming "Garden of desires" and all members of the household are waiting for Asya's birthday. Asya has a sense of...
A judge is devastated after the death of his wife and is neglectful of his children. His son befriends the children of a street beggar who live in an abandoned, derelict church. After his experience with his new friends, the young boy begins to feel sorry for his father and sympathizes with his...
Two young orphan siblings travel to Moscow in search of their missing father. Scared of being separated and sent to orphanages, they hope to reunite with the last link of their shattered family.
Alla Demidova ranks among the greatest actresses to have graced the Russian-language stage over the past six decades, as well as screens big and small. She's famous for her tragic characters. Perhaps because she, above all, understands the world as a realm of worries and sorrow?
In VGIK, she was a student of the workshop of Sergei Gerasimov and Tamara Makarova, and watched Godard's "Last Breath" and thought, nothing more is needed. Everything is already there. But, in the end, without her, without her 22 films, the history of world cinema would be incomplete. In our...
In this affectionate, leisurely paced comedy, an Odessa policeman is out walking his beat when he discovers an adorable infant abandoned in a cabbage patch. He does his duty and takes the baby to an orphanage, but later he and his wife, who have an unusually affectionate and cozy relationship,...
A woman is paid a surprise visit by her long-forgotten classmate, who needs her advice: should he choose a wife or a lover? An outrageously burlesque mise-en-scène is repeated many times but each time in a different place and performed by new actors. Why?
A man goes to see his former schoolmate working at a boiler house and persuades him to burn in the furnace the corpse of his communal flat neighbor whom he has just murdered after a quarrel. An orphaned girl gets a job in the archives of the maternity home to find out the identity of her mother who...
A couple of post-Soviet slackers want to record a video message for their friends who have moved to the United States. Muratova’s view of different types of freedom and pleasure.
Blonde Lilia and brunette Violetta are fascinated by horse racing, and the young racers are more than a little attracted to them, too. However, the worlds of sporting and romance don't always coexist peacefully as the two girls learn the hard way through a series of touching, surreal, and sometimes...
This celebrated director's "exquisite cruelty" appears front and center when the death of a stage actor turns a theatrical drama into a real one. Two in One's two parts, "Stagehands" and "Woman of a Lifetime," celebrate the psychological richness that lurks just beneath the surface of banal reality...
The movie examines the lives of the not-so-fortunate dregs of society through absurdist comedy. The unfortunates of the title are mentally challenged people, some of whom could be termed insane - or merely inane.
Senya, a young hunter, hunts for two wolves that have been preying on sheep of various farms in Siberia. Kira Muratova and husband Oleksandr Muratov's diploma film.
A strange man intervenes between ex-spouses on a matter directly related to a large sum of money one of them had secured after selling a piece of property.
Makar has spent years overseeing work at a collective farm. After he is asked to retire, it is time for Makar's son to take the reins. Yet the farm workers' hopes are soon dashed, and it is up to Makar to right the ship.
