Russian and East European Institute

Soviet, Russian and CIS Feature Films

Titles in red were acquired during the 2007-2008 academic year

**Special note: DVD-PAL films may be viewed only on PAL, multi-standard DVD players, or many computers. One such player is now available in BH 506. Instructional Support Services can also offer assistance (855-8065).**

9 ROTA (DVD version 9ROTA, DVD-PAL version 9ROTA1-PAL)
2005, 126 min., Russian with English Subtitles, Directed by Feyodar  Bondarchuk. The year is 1988. Kranoiarsk. Liutyi, Vorobei, Chugun, Stas, and Dzhokonda meet at a draftee induction center in Krasnoiarsk. From there they are dispatched for training on the border of Afghanistan, where they meet Pinochet, who was drafted from Groznii, and Lieutenant Dyagalo, who becomes their commander in the coming months. After training they turn out to be heros in Afghanistan. They come under Lieutenant Khokhl and become comrades in arms with Afanacii and Kurbash, older members of the 9th company - the most reckless and militant of all Afghans. Soon the 9th company receives a task: to occupy a height of 3234 meters above the road and to secure the passage of the colony.

ADAM'S RIB (ADA) (VHS)
1992, 77 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Vyacheslav Kristofovich.
A family of women share a crowded flat, made all the more claustrophobic by their chaotic entanglements with men. Grandma is a mute and disabled old woman who must be cared for by her daughter, who in turn must oversee her own two daughters.

THE ADVENTURES OF CHEBURASHKA & FRIENDS (ADVC) (DVD)
2001, 70 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Roman Kachanov.
Based on books written by Eduard Uspensky, this stop-motion animated series follows the adventures of the loveable, big-eared creature, Cheburashka, and his friends, Crocodile Genady and Old Lady Shapocliak - three of the most popular animated characters ever produced by Moscow's famed Soyuzmultfilm Studio. Includes the episodes, Crocodile Gena, where the group builds a playhouse for friends; Cheburashka, where they build a playground for children; Shapocliak, where the friends go on vacation and protect nature; and Cheburashka is Going to School, where the little creature is sent to school to learn to read.

AELITA, QUEEN OF MARS (AEL) (VHS)
1924, 113 min., Silent. Directed by Yakov Protazanov.
A Soviet engineer builds and pilots a space ship to find the alien woman who haunts his dreams.

AIR CREW (AIR) (DVD)
1980, 144 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Alexander Mitta.
A passenger plane lands just as a major earthquake begins. To escape the devastation, the plane takes off again, only to face more danger in the air. This exciting Soviet disaster film throws melodrama and real character development into the mix, adding some nice human textures to the spectacle.

ALADDIN'S MAGIC LAMP (ALL2) (DVD)
1996, 84 min., Russian, English and French language and subtitle options, Directed by Boris Rytsarev.
The timeless fairy tale is brought to the screen in this vibrant Russian film, suitable for younger as well as older viewers. Anyone who dares to look at the beautiful daughter of the sultan is put to death, but love brings Aladdin to the lovely princess. An omnipotent genie from a magic lamp helps Aladdin stay alive while protecting his lover from a wicked wizard.

ALEKSANDRA (ALEK) (DVD-PAL)
2007, 92 min., Russian with English Subtitles. Directed by Alexander Sokurov. Set in war-torn modern Chechnya this film depicts Aleksandra Nikolaevna as she visits her grandson who is one the best officers in his military division. The few days she spends with him opens up a whole new world to her. In this masculine world there are no women, warmth or comfort. Here life is poor and true feelings are hidden. Here matters of life and death are decided.  For this his 16th film, director Aleksandr Sorukov wrote the screenplay in order to realize an old dream of his: Galina Vishenvskuiu, a legendary opera singer, in a leading role. In order to realize this dream the director and the singer traveled to Chechnya. In this film, Sorukov brilliantly connects two people who are close, yet far from each other, the same, yet somehow different.  

ALEXANDER NEVSKY (VHS version ALN; DVD version ALEX)
1936, 110 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
Historical drama of Alexander Nevsky's life, his struggle to unite the Russian people, and his triumphs over the invading Germanic tribes. This film includes the famous battle scene on frozen Lake Peipus.

ANDREI ROUBLEV (VHS version AND; DVD version AND1)
1966, 185 min. (DVD version 205 min.), Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
This film is about the horrors the 15th century monk and icon painter--Andrei Roublev--witnesses on his "Dante Like" journey into of silence. Not until the film's full and glorious end does he realize that he has no excuse not to speak or paint, no matter how repressive the world around him. DVD Version: 1966, 205 minutes, in Russian with optional English subtitles. Immediately suppressed by the Soviets in 1966, Andrey Tarkovsky's epic masterpiece is a sweeping medieval tale of Russia's greatest icon painter. Too experimental, too frightening, too violent, and too politically complicated to be released officially, Andrei Rublev existed only in shortened, censored versions until The Criterion Collection created this complete 205-minute director's cut special edition, now available for the first time on DVD. Some of its special features include: exclusive widescreen digital transfer, new English subtitles translating 40% more dialogue, screen-specific essay by Harvard film professor Vlada Petric, rare film interviews with Andrei Tarkovsky, a timeline featuring key events in Russian history, plus the lives and works of Andrei Rublev and Tarkovsky.

ANNA (ANNA) (VHS)
1998, 99 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov.
Disregarding hard Soviet restrictions, including the censorship of home movies, Academy Award-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun) spent thirteen years surreptitiously filming his daughter Anna. Asking her the same five questions each year, Mikhalkov remarkably documents one of the greatest historical events of our time as seen through Anna's sweetening eyes. Beginning in 1980, six-year old Anna became the focus of Mikhalkov's examination of the effects totalitarian propaganda had on Soviet children. In an overwhelming manner, the maturity of Anna suddenly becomes harmonious with the collapse of communism and the rebirth of a liberated Russia. A spectacular montage of never-before-seen newsreels and notorious archival footage adds another dimension to a history lesson none of us are soon to forget.

ANNA KARENINA (ANNAK) (DVD)
1967, 103 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Alexander Zarkhi.
Based on Tolstoy's beloved 1870 novel, this Russian production of the classic tale of tragic passion and human morality traces the path of a woman who pays a very high price for following her heart. Tatiana Samoilova (The Cranes are Flying) plays the title role. Also starring Nikolai Gritsenko and Vassily Lanovoi.

ARSENAL (ARS) (DVD)
1929, 75 min., Silent with Russian titles, English subtitles. Directed by Alexander Dovzhenko.
A true masterpiece of form and content, set in the countryside and at the front during the final years of World War I and the beginnings of the Russian Revolution and Civil War. Arsenal depicts the struggle in Kiev as the arsenal goes on strike and the strikers are defeated. Its great sequences include the symbol of a starving horse, and the death of the Revolutionary hero who, as he struggles forward with open shirt, is riddled with bullets by the Whites. "...in many ways his most dazzling silent picture. Dovzhenko's view of wartime and battlefront morality is too ambiguous and multilayered to fit comfortably within any propaganda scheme" (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader).

THE ASCENT (ASC) (VHS)
1976, 111 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Larisa Shepitko.
An uncompromising portrayal of war and betrayal, The Ascent follows two Russian soldiers who are captured in German-occupied Byelorussia during World War Two.

ASSA (ASA) (DVD)
1988, Russian without English subtitles. Directed by Sergei Solov'ev.
This film, a Soviet version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, is about the Soviet mafia.

AT HOME AMONG STRANGERS, A STRANGER AMONG HIS OWN (ATH) (DVD)
1974, 97 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov.
An unenviable lot fell to the Red Army soldier Shilov: he is suspected of stealing gold. In the hungry 1920's, the young Soviet Republic's government searches for gold all over the country, to buy bread from abroad. And now, the collected valuables disappeared from the armored and well-guarded train car on their way to Moscow. Shilov learns that the valuables have been stolen by bandits, and in order to restore his good reputation, Shilov has to infiltrate the band. To find out where the stolen gold is kept, he must be at home among the strangers.

AUTUMN MARATHON (VHS version AUT; DVD version AUTM)
1969, 100 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Georgy Danelia.
A gentle English translator and university professor living in Leningrad can no longer separate his personal life from his duties and, while he doesn't wish to harm anyone, his life becomes increasingly muddled by his loving wife, a demanding mistress, a wretched colleague, hounding students and a neighbor who rings his doorbell at dawn everyday during the jogging season.

BALLAD OF A SOLDIER (VHS version BAL2; DVD version BAL3)
1959, 80 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Grigori Chukhrai
Grigori Chukhrai's poetic and elegiac war story is one of the major works of post-war Russian cinema, detailing the odd, bemused moments of a soldier's earnest seduction of a country girl while visiting his mother. The film is also devastating at capturing the dread, pain and humiliation of war, and its effects on the people. "The picture flows in such a swift, poetic way that the tragedy of it is concealed by a gentle lyric quality" (New York Times). With Vladimir Ivashov and Zhanna Prokhorenko.

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (VHS version BAT; DVD version BAT2 )
1925, 66 min., silent, Russian titles, English titles. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
This Soviet classic portrays the mutiny aboard the Tsarist battleship during the 1905 revolution. Selected by the British Film Institute in 1972 as one of the three best films ever made.

BED AND SOFA (BED) (VHS)
1927, 73 min., Silent with English titles. Directed by Abram Room.
Bed and Sofa is a brilliant and hilarious social commentary that centers on a bizarre love triangle in the midst of a housing shortage in NEP era Moscow. Supposedly based on the details in the life of poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, this film rejects politics and symbolism for a sense of humor and naturalism. The decision reached at the end of the film by the woman at the center of the triangle represents the liberation of women in the new Soviet society.

BELOYE SOLNTSE PUSTINY (WHITE SUN OF THE DESERT) (BEL) (DVD)
1969, 85 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Vladimir Motyl.
This Soviet-era "Red Western" has developed a large following for its blend of quirky humor, military drama, action and music. It was ritually viewed by cosmonauts before embarking on space missions. A Red Army soldier is ordered to guard a wanted guerilla leader's harem, but the task proves to be more difficult than he initially had imagined. A classic of Soviet cinema.

BORIS GODUNOV (BOR) (VHS version BOR; DVD version BOR-a)
1954, 111 min., color, In Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Vera Stroeva.
The Bolshoi Opera presents Mussorgsky's opera, based on Pushkin's play. In 1598 Ivan the Terrible's son is succeeded to the throne by his brother-in-law Boris Godunov, on whom the murder of Dmitri, Ivan's last quasi-religious heir is pinned. In good times, the people support Godunov, but when things get rough, he is once again Boris the Tsarevich-Murderer, and the people greet the first person pretending to be Dmitri as their savior.

BRIGANDS: CHAPTER VII (BRIG) (DVD)
1996, 129 min., Russian, Georgian, and French with English subtitles. Directed by Otar Iosseliani.
Vano, the main character, is the king of a country so beautiful and so rich that all the neighboring countries are jealous. But he is soon beset by treachery, and even his wife deceives him. The film is brilliant in its originality and awesome in its lessons of how history repeats itself. It was shot under difficult conditions in the director's native republic of Georgia as well as Paris.

BROTHER  (VHS version BROT; DVD version BROT1)
1997, 96 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Aleksei Balabanov.
A simple man returns from his army service, coming home to St. Petersburg, where he finds his brother is now a contract killer for the Russian mob. Soon, both brothers are in the service of organized crime and they team up to kill a Chechen mafia boss. This riveting crime film addresses the social breakdown and accepted grimness of city life in the former Soviet Union. Lead actor Sergei Bodrov's superb performance won him well-deserved honors around the world, including the award for Best Actor at the 1997 Chicago International Film Festival. "A wonderfully mordant excursion through the new Russian thugocracy; the best Russian movie I've seen in years" (J. Hoberman, The Village Voice).

BROTHER 2 (VHS version BRAT; VHS-PAL version BRAT-pal; DVD-PAL version is BRA1)
2000, 125 min. Russian without English subtitles. Directed by Aleksei Balabanov.
In the sequel to Brother, Danila Bagrov travels to America to investigate the death of his brother and take revenge on his assassins. But he quickly falls into disfavor with the Russian and American mafias and the result is suspenseful and non-stop action as Danila fights his way through Chicago to eventually escape back to Russia.

BUMER (BUM) (DVD-PAL)
2003, 110 min. Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Pyotr Buslov.
Along the night streets of Moscow races a black BMW, fleeing from pursuit. A chain of fateful events, including a breakdown and a shooting, position four heroes - four friends outside the law. In a life without rules and no way back, the black beamer - high-powered and fool-proof, takes them all the further from Moscow to the crazy and ruthless backwoods of the all-Russian roads.No one wanted to kill. And no one wanted to die. But they will have to follow this path to its end. And the faithful beamer, which for many days passed as a home for the four friends, will slowly cool off in the snow-covered forest. There are paths which are better not to choose…

BURNT BY THE SUN (VHS version BUR; DVD version BUR1)
1994, 134 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov.
This film directed by and starring Nikita Mikhalkov won the Academy Award for best foreign film. Colonel Sergei Kotov (Mikhalkov) is a Red Army hero of the Revolution who is spending the summer in the country with his young daughter, his wife and her eccentric family. When his wife's childhood love suddenly appears, the idyllic summer day takes a surprising turn.

THE CAMERAMAN'S REVENGE AND OTHER FANTASTIC TALES (CAM) (VHS)
80 min. Silent with English Titles. Directed by Ladislaw Starewicz.
Includes Ladislaw Starewicz's The Cameraman's Revenge (1912), The Insect's Christmas (1913), Frogland (1922), Voice of the Nightingale (1923), The Mascot (1933), and Winter Carousel (1958). Starewicz, working in Russia and later in Paris, created some of the most imaginative and loveliest works of puppet animation ever filmed.

CATAFALQUE (KATAFALK) (CAT) (VHS)
1990, Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Valeri Todorovsky.
The lives of a village woman and her daughter are disrupted after they take in a stranger found sleeping in their yard.

CHAPAYEV (CHA) (VHS)
1934, 101 min. Russian without English subtitles. Directed by Serge Vasilyev/Georgi Vasilyev.
A stirring account of a beloved hero of the Russian Revolution. An illiterate Russian serves in the Tsar's army, and after the Revolution, forms his own forces and goes on the Red side, fighting the Whites.

THE CHEKIST (CHK) (VHS)
1992, 90 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Alexandr Rogozhkin.
In 1917, secret police from the KGB forerunner, C.H.E.K.A., unleashed a reign of terror on all those considered enemies of the revolution. A Cheka officer interrogates, judges and then executes a wide variety of people who cannot fit into the new Soviet system, from Christians and Jews to former aristocrats.

THE CIGARETTE GIRL OF MOSSELPROM (CIG) (VHS)
1924, 78 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky.
A street woman finds herself whisked into stardom when she is discovered by a movie producer.

CIRCUS (CIR)(VHS)
1936, 89 min., Russian with English Subtitles. Directed by Grigori Alexandrov.
Capitalism meets Communism in this incredible story of an American circus artist who has a black boy- a daring conceit for 1936. But the only way (and only place) she can possibly find happiness is naturally among the Soviet people. Lyubov Orlova, the musical comedy mega-star of the 1930's delivers a performance of verve in this daring attempt to import the American comedy form into the Soviet Union.

CLUB OF THE BIG DEED (CLU) (VHS)
1927, 87 min., Silent with French narration and German subtitles. Directed by Grigori Kozintsev.
A most cinematographic film in the fashion of Eisenstein and Pudovkin, celebrating a revolutionary period of an earlier time, in this case the Decembrist movement of 1825 in St. Petersburg. It has a collective hero and it has a villain who is villainous merely for the sake of it. The sets, the gambling club of the title and a parade ground are used with great virtuosity. Grigori Kozintsev was a teenager when he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Petrograd and with Leonid Trauberg, both stage actors, became film directors in 1922. They organized the studio FEXS, "Factory of the Eccentric Actor." The company had as its aims the search of new forms of theatrical expression to overthrow the old traditional ways represented by the Moscow Art Theatre.

THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES (COL1) (VHS)
1969, 80 min., Armenian with English subtitles, Directed by Sergei Paradjanov
An acclaimed masterpiece first banned by Soviet censors. The movie depicts the life and spiritual odyssey of the 16th century Armenian poet and troubadour Sayat Nova and his rise from carpetweaver to archbishop and martyr.

COME AND SEE (COM1) (VHS)
1985, 142 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Elem Klimov.
Set in 1943 German-occupied Byelorussia, the film follows an adolescent boy through the nightmare that is war.

COMMISSAR (COM2) (VHS)
1988, 105 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Alexander Askoldov.
Set against the Russian Civil War, a Red Army commander's military career is disrupted by an unwanted pregnancy. Forced to stay with a poor Jewish family until her child is born, she comes face to face with the realities of different cultures. Ultimately she is forced to make the difficult decision to rejoin her troops at the front or stay with her child.

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF YURI NORSTEIN (NORS) (DVD)
2005, 98 min. Russian with English subtitles.

COMRADE ABRAM (COMR) (DVD)
1919, 18 min., Silent with English titles. Directed by Alexander Razumi.
This short propaganda film (or agitka) tells the tale of a Jew who survives a pogrom and becomes a leader in the Red Army. Intended to indoctrinate Soviet citizens by showing heroic examples of conversion to the revolutionary cause, the agitka (“agitation pieces”) were originally screened on Russian “film trains”. A rare portrait of a Jewish character in early Russian cinema

THE CRANES ARE FLYING (CRA) (VHS)
1957, 94 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov.
Set during World War II, this is the story of two young lovers, Boris and Veronica, whose love is shattered by the war.

CREATION OF ADAM (CRE) (VHS)
1993, 93 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Yuri Pavlov.
Andrey is a young man who fears his marriage may fall apart because his wife thinks he is gay. A series of events confirm these suspicions as Andrey meets Philip, an enterprising businessman who turns his life around. Philip shows Andrey how to love.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (CRI1, CRI2) (VHS)
1970, 200 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Lev Kulijanov.
This film is an adaptation of Dostoevsky's classic novel.

A CRUEL ROMANCE (CRU) (DVD)
1984, 145 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov.
Actor-director Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun) is among the stars of Eldar Ryazanov's romantic melodrama, based on a play by Alexander Ostrovsky. The beautiful daughter (Larissa Guzeyeva) of an impoverished noblewoman must weigh her true love for an untrustworthy man who is engaged to another woman against the practical considerations offered by another--a suitor she happens to despise.

THE CUCKOO (CUC) (DVD)
2002, 103 min., Russian, Finnish, and Lapp with English subtitles. Directed by Alexander Rogozhkin.
September 1944, in a land torn apart by war, a Finnish sniper is labeled a coward by his compatriots; as punishment, he is chained to a rock and left to his own devices. Not long after a disgraced Russian Captain, en route to his court martial, is injured in an accident. Both men are about to find out they one thing in common. Wounded and emotionally tortured, they are taken in by Anni, a young resourceful war widow, who offers shelter to one while nursing the other back to health. None of them understands the others' languages, but it doesn't seem to matter. Isolated, the three unlikely roommates-a Finn, a Russian and a Lapp-overcome both comic and tragic misunderstandings to form a passionate three-way…relationship. Because after a day of hard work on Anni's farm, who needs words?

DAURIA (DAU) (DVD)
1971, 182 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Viktor Tregubovich.
A carefree daredevil's main concern in life is a romantic rivalry for the hand of a pretty girl. But on the eve of the outbreak of World War I, he comes to realize there is much more happening in a world bigger than he ever imagined, and soon he will face the most important decisions of his life.

DEFENSE COUNSEL SEDOV (DEF) (VHS)
1989, 48 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Evgeny Tsimbal.
Sedov is a determined, compassionate lawyer with an unyielding sense of principle who takes on the nearly suicidal task of defending accused "enemies of the people." This unsettling film shot in icy black and white mercilessly probes its characters and draws them into an unexpectedly chilling finale.

DEATH OF A SWAN (DEA) (VHS)
1916, 51 min., Silent with German titles. Directed by Yevgeni Bauer.
A very rare 1917 film made by Yevgeni Bauer, who came to directing from design and excelled at getting great performances from actors. Prolific--he directed some 20 films each year--Bauer focused on contemporary subjects for his films rather than classical themes, and according to historian Jay Leyda, insisted on dressing all of his heroes and heroines in beautiful dress, no matter whom they portrayed.

DERSU UZELA (DER) (DVD)
1975, 140 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Kurosawa's remarkable personal tale of the friendship between a wise old man and a young, Soviet explorer. Filmed in the beautiful expanse of Siberia, it is a unique story of man's unity with nature, and a powerful testament to faith. "...Dersu Uzala brings moments of real majesty. It is the clear resonance of genius; Kurosawa can find grandeur in the intimate as well as the infinite" (Jay Cocks, Time). Academy Award-winner for Best Foreign Language Film.

DESTINY OF A MAN (DEST) (DVD)
1959, 103 min., Russian with English Subtitles. Directed by Sergey Bondarchuk
Adapted from the story by Mikhail Sholkhov. The film’s protagonist, Andrei Sokolov lost his wife and children in the Second World War, survived the horrors of a concentration camp, where he was being led to his execution, only to have his sentence revoked at the last minute. After being released from the camp, Sokolov marches with the Soviet Army to Berlin. But Fate would not stop testing him:  on Victory Day he received the news of his son’s death. He seemed to have lost everything, but the human spirit preservers. 

THE DIAMOND ARM (DIA2) (DVD)
1968, 100 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Leonid Gaidai.
Leonid Gaidai, considered a master of satire and slapstick in his homeland, directed this comedy that remains beloved in Russia. The film was inspired by a newspaper account of a man caught smuggling gold and diamonds inside his plaster arm cast. In the movie, the two swindlers behind the operation find themselves caught up in a wild series of adventures. Their hilarious dialogue spawned several popular catch phrases in the Soviet Union and helped make the film one of the country's biggest box office hits of all time. Includes optional English, French and Arabic dubbed audio, multilingual subtitle options, interview with Nina Grebeshkova, a circus performance excerpt by Yuri Nikulin, excerpts of the theater performances “The Marriage of Figaro and Government Inspector” starring Andrei Mironov and Anatoli Papanov, cast and crew filmographies, and a photo album.

DNEVNOI DOZOR (Day Watch) (DNE) (DVD-PAL)
2005, 140 min., Russian without English subtitles. Directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
It has been some time since the grand finale of the original film. Anton (Khabensky) continues to fight the forces of Darkness while simultaneously attempting to find and save his son from the clutches of those same forces. But when vampires belonging to the Dark side start mysteriously being killed, and Anton is framed for their murders, he must put that goal on hold and try to escape the Day Watch that is looking for his blood.

DOCTOR AIBOLIT (DrAib) (DVD)
2000, 68 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by D. Cherkasskii.
Dr. Aibolit, the Russian equivalent of Dr. Doolittle, and the evil pirate Barmalay have several exciting adventures, which are told with lots of music. The stories come from the books by the author K. Chukovski.

DOROGAIA ELENA SERGEEVNA (Dear Elena Sergeevna) (DOR) (VHS)
1988, Russian with English subtitles. Directed by E. Riazanov.
This film explores the relationships of high school students and their teachers. This psychological drama has an unusually tragic ending for a Soviet film.

EARLY RUSSIAN CINEMA (VHS)

EARTH (EART) (DVD)
1930, 88 min., Silent with English title cards, Directed by Alexander Dovzhenko.
A masterpiece. The last silent film by Alexander Dovzhenko is a lyrical evocation of his native Ukraine, the theme of the life cycle of man developed through constant juxtaposition and intertwining of images of life and death. The film charts the conflict between peasants and a landowner in a film poem of inestimable beauty. "A picture for filmgoers who are prepared to take their cinema as seriously as Tolstoy took the novel" (James Agee). It also includes a partial reconstruction of Sergei Eisenstein’s BEZHIN MEADOW (Bezhin lug), 31 minutes, Russian intertitles with English subtitles.

EAST/WEST (EAST) (DVD)
1999, 121 min., Russian and French with English and French subtitles, Directed by Regis Wargnier.
Sandrine Bonnaire, Catherine Deneuve, Oleg Menchikov and Sergei Bodrov Jr. star in this moving drama about a tragic chapter in Russian history. A medic and his French wife return to Russia when Stalin invites exiles back to help "rebuild" the country at the end of World War II. While avoiding the executions that awaited many of those who returned, the couple is forced to endure bleak living and working conditions and the deprived circumstances threaten to drive them apart. Escaping to the West seems impossible until the arrival of a famous French actress opens a risky door of opportunity. From the director of Indochine. "Poetic, tragic and emotionally heart-wrenching" (Louse Keller, Urban Cinefile).

EISENSTEIN: THE SOUND YEARS (EIS1, EIS2) (DVD)
Three historic films by one of the central figures of cinema history are included in their entirety in this three-disc boxed set.

ELIXIR (ELI) (VHS)
1995, 75 min., Russian with English Subtitles. Directed by Irina Evteeva.
Loosely based on tales by E.T.A. Hoffman, Elixir is an outstanding visionary animation employing some truly innovative techniques. Evteeva uses a wide range of textures, from paintings on glass to the human face on film, variously live-action, hand-painted, or super-imposed. The captivating result is a wonderland inhabited by fiery salamanders and winged spirits. Good fights evil in search of a life-giving Talisman whose finder will rule the world. Elixir is at once a visual mystery-play and a philosophical fairy-tale.

ERALASH (ERA) (DVD)
204 min., Russian without English subtitles.
Russian As the theme song puts it, “for boys and girls and their parents as well!” Students of Russian at any level will enjoy these short humorous films which touch on a wide array of themes: fashion, sports, politics, pop culture, school, and generational conflict. From the long-running and popular Russian television show of the same name.

ESCAPE FROM AFGHANISTAN (PESHAVAR WALTZ) (ESC) (DVD)
1994, 88 min., Dubbed in English. Directed by Timour Bekmambetov/Gennady Kayumov.
A Best Director award-winner at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the acclaimed Russian film Peshavar Waltz was purchased by Roger Corman's New Concorde and re-edited to put American characters in the spotlight. Even in this compromised form, it remains a compelling depiction of war in Afghanistan, based on actual events. An American reporter and doctor (British and French in the original version) come to a military base in Pakistan to document P.O.W. conditions. While there, the Russian prisoners rise up and take over the base, holding the visitors hostage and slaughtering their captors with no mercy. Clearly Corman purchased the film to exploit the recent American actions in Afghanistan, proving the old dog is still up to his old tricks.

EUGENE ONEGIN (VHS version EUG; DVD version EUG1)
1998, 149. min., Russian with English subtitles.
The Bolshoi Opera presents Tchaikovsky's opera based on Pushkin's novel in verse.

THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF MR. WEST IN THE LAND OF THE BOLSHEVIKS (EXT) (VHS)
1924, 88 min., Silent with English titles. Directed by Lev Kuleshov.
An inspired satire of America's slanted view of Russia, Mr. West is sharply funny as it plays with misconceptions about the Soviet people. A bourgeois American is challenged by his friends to visit those "mad savage Russians.". Once he arrives he is beset by an onslaught of strange characters and events, thrusting him into a world of danger and intrigue. . .then the farce really begins.

FAIRY TALES FROM FAR OFF LANDS (FAIR) (DVD)
Restored in 2005, English
Three From Sour Cream Village (1978, 19 min)
Vacation in Sour Cream Village (1980, 19 min)
Winter in Sour Cream Village (1984, 17 min)
Strawberries Under the Snow (1994, 10 min)
Blind Man's Bluff (1994, 10 min)
Boy is a Boy (1986, 10 min)
Who's First? (1950, 10 min)

FAIRY TALES FROM FAR OFF LANDS: Bremen’s Musicians and Other Stories (FAIR2) (DVD)
1958-1988, 76 min., no English subtitles.
The Bremen Town Musicians (1969, 21 min)
In the Footsteps of the Bremen Town Musicians (1973, 19 min)
Puss in Boots (1968, 16 min)
The Cat Who Knew How to Sing (1988, 10 min)
The Mushroom House (1958, 10 min)

FAIRY TALES FROM FAR OFF LANDS: CLASSIC ANIMATION COLLECTION (FAIR3) (DVD)
1958-61, 127 min., Russian with English subtitles.
The Adventures of Buratino (1959, 68 min)
The Boy from Napoli (1958, 20 min)
Cipollino (1961, 39 min)

FAMINE 33 (FAM1) (VHS)
1991, 95 min., Ukrainian with English subtitles. Directed by Oles Yanchuk.
Searing drama of genocide covered for a generation. Based on Vasil Barka's novel The Yellow Prince.

FATHER AND SON (FASN) (DVD)
2003, 83 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov.
In the companion piece to his 1996 film Mother and Son, Aleksandr Sokurov (Russian Ark) looks at the bond between a widowed Russian father and his son, a student at a local military school, who live together in a rooftop apartment overlooking the sea. From the innocently competitive games they play, to the hours spent quietly in the other's company, to the feelings of desperation, guilt and desired independence that threaten to tear them apart, Sokurov captures their intimacies with a dreamlike tranquility reminiscent of his mentor, Andrei Tarkovsky. "...offers a fresh and often startling vision of one of the most fundamental relationships between human beings" (Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times).

FATHER OF A SOLDIER (FAT) (DVD)
1965, 92 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Rezo Chkheidze.
Sergo Zakariadze won Best Actor honors at the Moscow International Film Festival for his moving performance as an aging peasant who is a witness to war's inhumanity when he travels to see his wounded son in a military hospital. With his son already back at the front, the father accompanies the Soviet army to Berlin just as the Third Reich is about to fall.

FEASTS OF BALTHASAR OR ONE NIGHT WITH STALIN (FEA) (VHS)
1990, 88 min, Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Yuri Kara.
Based on Fazil Iskander's novel Sandro from Chegen, this movie takes place in Georgia. Sandro, a dancer from Chegem performs at a feast for Stalin.

THE FOOL AND THE FLYING SHIP (FOO) (VHS)
1991, 30 min.
Robin Williams' menagerie of voices and The Klezmer Conservatory Band's spirited melodies combine hilariously in this wacky retelling of a famous Russian folktale in which a country fool and his crew of superhuman "moujiks" unite to win the hand of the tsar's daughter.

A FORGOTTEN TUNE FOR THE FLUTE (FOR) (VHS)
1988, 131 min., English subtitles. Directed by Eldar Ryazanov.
A comedy about Lenny, a high-ranking official with the Leisure Time Directorate. Although he lives a privileged lifestyle, married to the daughter of an even higher-ranking official, he falls in love with Lidia, a vivacious nurse who helps him rediscover himself. Unrated but recommended for mature audiences.

FREEZE--DIE--COME TO LIFE (FRE) (VHS)
1989, 105 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Vitaly Kanevski.
Awarded the Best First Film at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, this autobiography set in the Soviet Far East just after World War II depicts the action in a small mining community where the border between the local gulag and the village proper seems impossible to detect.

THE GENERAL LINE (GEN) (VHS)
90 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
"General Line" presents yet another classic by Eisenstein. Begun in 1926, this silent film merges the blacks, whites, and grays of the film to resemble the sounds and tones of a symphony orchestra.

GENTLEMAN OF FORTUNE (GENT) (DVD)
1971, 88 min., In Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Alexander Seryi
A noble kindergarten teacher sets out to save Alexander the Great's helmet from a band of thieves, using his own likeness to a dangerous criminal to infiltrate their ranks. Yevgeni Leonov (Autumn Marathon) tops the cast of this very funny tale of law and disorder.

THE GIRL WITH THE HAT BOX (GIR) (VHS)
1927, 67 min., Russian titles with English subtitles. Directed by Boris Barnet.
Patterned after American slapstick, a young woman is caught in a madcap chase for a winning lottery ticket.

GOLEM: THE PETRIFIED GARDEN (GOLM) (DVD)
1983, 84 min., English and other languages, with English subtitles. Directed by Amos Gitai.
A revelation from one of the world's great filmmakers. Amos Gitai turns his iconoclastic gaze to the collapse of the Soviet Union in a magnificent, wry, and oddly humorous film that stretches across the vast Russian plain. Daniel is an art dealer with bases in New York, Tel Aviv, and Paris. He inherits a collection in Birobidzhan, the autonomous Soviet Jewish republic in the far reaches of Siberia. Daniel embarks on a trip to find the collection, including a giant statue of a Golem, by whatever means necessary. As he travels, he glimpses the painful aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse. This brilliant epic stars Jerome Koenig, with supporting roles by B-movie legend Sam Fuller (Shock Corridor, The Naked Kiss) and Fassbinder's muse Hanna Schygulla (The Marriage of Maria Braun).

THE GUARD (GUA) (VHS)
1989, 110 min., English and other languages, Directed by Alexander Rogozhkin.
Based on an actual event, this scathing retort to the glossy military fanfare of the Brezhnev era exposes the brutal army practice of hazing first-year conscripts. Shot in gritty black and white, this shocking study in organized sadism captures the psychology of army conscripts enduring the nightmarish conditions as they escort hardened criminals on a high-security train from one prison to the next.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOLA! (HAP) (DVD)
2001, 81 min., Russian with English Subtitles. Directed by Vladimir Shchegolkov.
Lola is getting ready for her birthday and lets two strangers with flowers and a cake into her apartment. The "guests", however, are killers, using Lola's apartment as a shooting place to assassinate the president whose motorcade is to proceed by Lola's house. Lola becomes a hostage and the main obstacle to the assassination plan.

HOUSE BUILT ON SAND (HOU) (VHS)
1991, 75 min., Russian with English Subtitles. Directed by Niyole Adomenaite.
This slice of life among the Russian intelligentsia on the eve of World War II is an elliptical, languorous mood piece. A bored group of friends plays a practical joke on their clique's outcast, sending her a letter from a supposed admirer hopelessly in love with her. Adomenaite paints a Chekhovian portrait of people trapped together, unable to escape their self-imposed cycle of dependency. Closely-observed characterizations distinguish this evocative entertainment.

THE IDIOT (IDO1-4) (DVD)
2003, 500 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Vladimir Bortko.
Count Myshkin comes back to Russia from Switzerland where he was under care in psychiatric hospital. He meets Parfen Rogozhin on a train on his way to St.Petersburg. Rogozhin tells Myshkin about his passionate love for Nastasia Filippovna who used to be a kept-woman of millionaire Totsky. When the count gets to Petersburg, he comes to the house of his distant relative Epanchina who is a wife of a general. Myshkin meets Epanchina’s husband, their daughters, and general’s secretary Ganya Ivolgin. Nastasia Filippovna’s portrait that was accidentally spotted by the count on the general’s table creates a big impression on Myshkin.

THE INNER CIRCLE (INN2) (VHS)
1991, 139 min., English. Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky.
A love story about a young Russian couple during Stalinist times. With the hiring of Ivan, the young husband, as the Kremlin's projectionist, the young couple witness the brutal truth behind Stalin's propaganda and are asked to betray everything they hold dear.

IRONIIA SUD'BY ILI SLOKOM PAROM (The Irony of Fate) (VHS version IRO; DVD version IRO3)
1975, 185 min. Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Eldar Ryazanov.
A romantic classic, Ironiia Sud'by (The Irony of Fate) is a lighthearted story of how fate brings together two people on New Years. Zhenia, a Moscow surgeon is mistakenly flown to Leningrad after a drunken bachelor's sendoff at a bathhouse with his friends. Not realizing that he is in the wrong city, he stumbles back to what he believes is his apartment only to find the true woman of his dreams.

THE ITALIAN (ITL) (DVD)
2005, 99 min, Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Andrei Kravchuk.
For most Russian orphans, the chance to be adopted is a dream come true. But six-year old Vanya Solntsev has other hopes. After discovering his mother is still alive, the abandoned boy teaches himself to read so as to learn her address from his personal files. Before a wealthy Italian couple can claim him for their own, Vanya sets off on a perilous journey to find his only remaining family. Pursued by orphanage staff and the police, the determined runaway must now face the most difficult challenges of his young life in this incredible story inspired by true events.

IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART I (IVA1) (VHS)
1944, 96 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
Stalinist dramatization and interpretation of the life of Tsar Ivan IV. It emphasizes Ivan's struggle to break the power of the boyars for the good of the Russian people.

IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART II (IVA2) (VHS)
1946, 82 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
Ivan returns from retirement to fight the Boyars.

IVAN VASIL'EVICH MENIAET PROFESSIIU (Ivan Vasil'evich Changes Professions) (IVA) (VHS)
1973, 93 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Leonid Gaidai.
A comedy based on Bulgakov's play, Ivan Vasil'evich.

IVAN VASILEVICH: BACK TO THE FUTURE (IVA3) (DVD)
1973, 93 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Leonid Gaidai.
Inventor Shurik constructs a time machine that accidentally sends him, the apartment building superintendent, and a thief to the palace of Ivan the Terrible, while the notorious monarch finds himself in present day Moscow. This wacky sci-fi comedy was one in a series in which Aleksandr Demyanenko portrayed Shurik.

IVANOVO DETSTVO (My Name is Ivan) (MYN) (VHS)
1964, 100 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
This film, based on the V. Bogomolov story about a young boy deprived of his childhood by war. Set during World War II, twelve year old Ivan is bent on revenge after his family is killed by German soldiers. Because of his youthful size and agility, Ivan becomes a spy for his homeland and risks his life as he crosses the German border. He makes a new family out of the Russian soldiers who find his courage to be an inspiration.

KINDERGARTEN (KIN1) (VHS)
1983, 160 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Largely autobiographical, Kindergarten is poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko's recollection of his boyhood years during World War II in Russia and the evacuation of Moscow in 1941. The film assumes a poetic form of storytelling as Yevtushenko recreates the overcrowded railway stations, Nazi planes, women bandits, passengers and villagers he encounters.
Available at Herman B. Wells Library in Kent Cooper Room-Video Browsing Area.

THE KINGDOM OF CROOKED MIRRORS (KING) (DVD)
1963, 80 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Aleksander Rou.
Another visually imaginative and enchanting children's fantasy film from the underrated Aleksander Rou (Father Frost). Through an old magic mirror, young Olya meets her own reflection, Yalo. Together they embark on a journey into a kingdom of crooked mirrors, where normal mirrors are outlawed because evil and dishonest people cannot face their true selves. Includes optional French and Arabic audio, multilingual subtitle options, interview with actor Andrei Stapran, photo album, and cast & crew filmographies.

KOKTEBEL’ (KOK) (DVD-PAL)
2003, 100 min. Russian without English subtitles, Directed by Boris Khlebnikov
Father and son get lost on a long journey from Moscow to Koktebel'. They go through forest and field, through rainstorms and wind. They meet different people: some decent and some not. Some help them and some chase them with rifles... but what compels them to set out on this difficult journey? Some time long before the father had told his son about an amazing mountain from which one can launch a glider, having personified/embodied the eternal dream of humanity - to ascend to the clouds to a meeting with the wind and freedom.  But the boy searches in vain for Koktebel' on the map, because indeed Koktebel', which his father told him about, is a wonderful dream about flight, about freedom and unattainable happiness.

THE LADY WITH THE DOG (LAD) (LAD 2nd Copy) (VHS)
1960, 89 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Josef Heifitz.
Anton Chekhov's story of a bored, middle-aged married banker from Moscow who meets a young married woman while on vacation at Yalta comes to life in this Russian film.

LETTERS FROM KARELIA (LET1) (VHS)
2004, 76 min. English. Directed by Kelly Saxberg.
Taimi Pitkanen last saw her brother Aate in a Leningrad railway station 1931. Taimi was returning to Canada from Moscow; Aate was headed for Soviet Karelia, on the border with Finland, where his skills in electricity and languages -both English and Finnish - were badly needed. Aate never came back. Even when the dream went sour, Aate held on, writing home until, in 1941, Hitler attacked the USSR, after that, no one in Canada heard anything more of Aate Pitkanen. Sixty years later, the discover of his last letters - written but never mailed from a Finnish prisoner-of-war camp - reveals his fate and brings together Taimi and Alfred, the son Aate never met. Visiting Taimi in Canada, Alfred Pitkanen learns the dramatic story of his father's Canadian family and of "Karelia Fever," the enthusiasm that gripped so many Finnish Canadians in the 1930s. Almost forgotten now, it lured thousands to a tragic fate in the Soviet Union. Alfred follows his father's journey from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to Karelia, from young communist pioneer to ski champion of the USSR to Soviet spy. With him we learn Aate's fate and the story of one of the great dreams of the twentieth century.

LITTLE VERA (LIT1) (VHS)
1988, 110 min., English subtitles. Directed by Vasily Pichul.
This is one of the most controversial films ever produced in the Soviet Union. In addition to being the highest grossing film in Soviet history, this historic film examines such previously taboo subjects in the Soviet Union as drugs, promiscuity, nudity, and domestic violence. It focuses on working-class life in Gorbachev's new open society and is a daring look at a world of simmering sensuality and brutal candor. Natalya Negoda portrays a sullen, sultry woman who is torn between her brooding lover and her bitter parents in this smoldering drama. The film is recommended for mature audiences.

MAD LOVE: THE FILMS OF EVGENI BAUER (MADL) (DVD)
144 min., Silent with film score
Russian film poet Evgeni Bauer combined the technical virtuosity of D.W. Griffith with the haunting terror of Edgar Allen Poe and the artist's eye of Johannes Vermeer. During his brief four-year career, Evgeni Bauer created macabre masterpieces. They are dramas darkly obsessed with doomed love and death, astonishing for their graceful camera movements, risque themes, opulent sets and chiaroscuro lighting. For many decades, Bauer's films were buried in the Soviet archives-declared too "cosmopolitan" and bizarre for the puritanical Soviet regime.
Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913)-Bauer's first surviving film tells the story of a society woman who kills her rapist and must make a new life for herself when her husband leaves her. After Death (1915)-explores the psychological hold of the dead over the living. In the Dying Sun (1916)-an artist obsessed with the idea of capturing death on canvas becomes fixated on a mute ballerina.

MADE IN THE USSR (CDELANO V CCCP) (MAD) (VHS)
1990, 82 min., Russian with English subtitles,
When a high school student steals an audio recording from the school, the new school director initializes extreme measures to weed out this "enemy" of the school. With characteristic socialist propaganda, the director mobilizes most of the school to strive together to build what is a microcosm of the Communist state - punishing the "enemies of the people" and enduring great hardship for the sake of a perfect happiness which awaits them.

MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERIA (MAN5) (DVD)
1929, 68 min., Silent with film score. Directed by Dziga Vertov.
Described as an “experiment in the language of pure cinema”, the film is perhaps the most dazzling and sophisticated work not only of Soviet but of world silent cinema.  In part, it is a panorama of and a manifesto on the nature of socialist society in the late 1920s, but it is especially a revelation of the possibilities of non-acted, nonfiction films.

MASTER AND MARGARITA (MAST) (DVD)
2005, 450 min. Russian with English Subtitles. Directed by Vladimir Bortko.
Set in Moscow under Stalin and in Jerusalem under Pilate, it has several story-lines where history, religion, and politics are intertwined. The sacrifices of Master (Galibin), a talented author of a manuscript about the biblical Pontius Pilate, and Master's muse - Margarita (Kovalchuk), are paralleled by the biblical story of Ieshua in Jerusalem, and the deceit of the cowardly ambiguous Pilate (Lavrov), whose character alludes to a Soviet leader. The reality is distorted by Satan Woland (Basilashvili), and his lieutenants, who are manipulating public events and people's lives by pushing the buttons of human weaknesses and sins. Margarita taps into Woland's power, trying to save Master. The character of Master is autobiographical, burning of his manuscript alludes to what Mikhail Bulgakov himself did under threats from the Soviet authorities.

MERTVYE DUSHI (MERT/PAL1 & 2) (PAL-DVD)
1984, 387 min (2-DVD set). Russian without English subtitles. Directed by Mikhail Shveitzer.
Mikhail Shveitzer's rendition of Gogol's masterpiece.

THE MIRROR (MIR) (VHS)
1964, 106 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
The looking glass is not merely cracked but shattered and we see the jagged, jumbled reflections of its shards, images of Tarkovsky's childhood mixed with fragments of his adult life--a child's wartime exile, a mother's experience with political terror, the breakup of a marriage, life in a country home--all intermingled with slow-motion dream sequences and poetic chunks of stark newsreels.

MISS MEND (MIS) (VHS)
1926, 257 min., From a French print, with French title cards.
Made in the tradition of French mega-serials like Les Vampires and Fantomas, this silent Russian serial offers excitement in every installment, along with some pointedly pro-Soviet propaganda. Three reporters and an office girl attempt to stop a bacteriological strike against the U.S.S.R. by some powerful western industrialists. Director Fyodor Otsep broke into film with his screenplay for 1916's Queen of Spades. Star Boris Barnet also collaborated on the screenplay and served as an assistant director.

MOSCOW DOES NOT BELIEVE IN TEARS (MOSD) (DVD)
1981, 150 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Vladimir Menshov.
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, this is the enchanting drama of three women struggling to establish themselves in Russia's huge and often impersonal capital city. Beneath the film's charming exterior, it is a truthful, moving portrait of the plight of women in Russia, depicted over the span of two decades.

MOSCOW PARADE (MOS1) (VHS)
1993, 103 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Ivan Dychovichny.
This is the first post-Soviet film about the Stalin era. German actress Uta Lemper stars as a woman married to the chief of the secret police, the man responsible for killing her family. Though she hates the secret police and the forces that destroyed her previous life, she takes advantage of all the luxuries available only to the Soviet elite.

MOTHER (MOTH) (DVD)
1926, 87 min., silent with music. Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin.
Mother is the chronicle of an individual's transformation from political naiveté to Marxist awareness. Set during the 1905 Revolution and adapted from a novel by Maxim Gorky, the film details the plight of a working class woman. The film, though, is more than just an exercise in propaganda. It is a dramatic tale of conflict and love - most specifically, a mother's love for her son - whose emotional elements are effective on a universal, human level.

MOTHER AND SON (MTR; MTR1) (DVD)
1997, 73 min., In Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov.
In a stone cottage in the countryside, a son takes care of his dying mother. Aleksandr Sokurov takes this simple scenario and creates pure cinematic poetry. This is the kind of contemplative, hypnotic beauty that is rarely achieved in film, and then only by true masters. While very little happens in terms of plot, the film offers more truths -- about life, death and devotion -- than the most complex narrative could ever provide.

MY CHILDHOOD (MYC) (VHS)
1938, 100 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Mark Donskoi.
In the opening chapter, the four year old Maxim Gorky is placed under the care of his cruel grandfather and his loving grandmother. After experiencing the misery of abuse and poverty with his new family, Gorky is forced into the streets and becomes a wandering beggar.

THE NEW BABYLON (NEW) (VHS)
1929, silent with English titles. Directed by Grigori Kozintsev.
The Paris Commune of 1871 represents a historic moment that could have led to momentous changes had it succeeded. This early silent Soviet production is based on the events of that often overlooked "forgotten revolution." It dramatizes the fight of the Communards through the story of a young woman caught up in the struggle against the bourgeois. Told in eight parts, this silent epic captures the historic sweep of revolutionary Paris. Includes Dmitri Shostakovich's first film score.

NOCHNOI DOZOR (NIGHT WATCH) (NOC) (DVD)
2004. 155 min. Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Timur Bekmametov.
Everyone knows that it is dangerous on the streets at night. But on this occasion, the saying is not about criminals or maniacs. When night falls, and the power of evil rules completely, there exists that which is not encountered in the day - dark magicians, vampires, and other evil spirits. Their power is great and it is not possible to deal with them by typical weapons. But on the tracks of the "night hunters" comes one who for centuries fights by with twilight and vanquishes them, undeviatingly while observing this agreement, created a thousand years ago between Light and Dark . . . . Their name: Night Watch.

NO GREATER LOVE (NOG) (VHS)
1942, 74 min., Dubbed in English. Directed by Frederic Ermler.
Starring Vera Maretskaya. The World War II story of a Russian woman who turns her villagers into partisans for revenge against the Germans, who have killed her husband and infant son.

OBLOMOV (OBL) (VHS)
1981, 145 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov.
Winner of the Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Screenplay awards at the Oxford International Film Festival, this film taken from Goncharov's novel of the same name depicts Oblomov, one of the most recognizable characters in Russian literature. Although good-natured, Oblomov is a sloth, and friends and acquaintances both plead with him to change his ways, and find themselves drawn to him.

OCTOBER (VHS version OCT; DVD version OCT2)
1927, 102 min., Silent with English titles, Directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
Commissioned by the Soviet Central Committee, this Eisenstein film celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Russian revolution of October 1917 in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). Filmed on location, October recounts the events from a political perspective, as the czarists are snide old men, Kerensky (head of the provisional government) is power-hungry, and the Bolsheviks are passionate, committed, and heroic. Eisenstein employs various cinematic techniques to achieve a striking dramatic effect and the score is composed by Shostakovich.

OF FREAKS AND MEN (FRK) (VHS)
1998, 89 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Alexei Balabanov.
From the director of Brother comes this subversive black comedy that suggests the coarseness of contemporary culture is merely the flowering of seeds planted in the Victorian age. A pornographer and his assistant maneuver their way into two well-to-do families in St. Petersburg. Dark, hidden passions are revealed as manipulation and corruption take hold. "Balabanov is clearly a genuine troublemaker...Even Lynch and Greenaway have rarely left an audience with such a bitterly ironic punchline" (Jonathan Romney, Sight and Sound).

OPERATSIIA Y (OPER) (DVD)
1965, 96 min. Russian with English, French, Spanish, German, and Russian subtitles. Directed by Leonid Gaigai.
This eccentric comedy comprises three novels which center on the figure and main hero, the slightly peculiar Shurik, who falls into the most unbelievable situations. In "Workmate" he re-educates the hooligan Verzil, who is serving 15 days; in "Delusion"  Shurik prepares for an exam in a trance and safely passes; In "Operation Y" he saves a storehouse, which was already robbed by the director, from burglary by Balbes, Trus, and Byval.

OSTROV (The Island) (DVD version OST1, DVD-PAL version OST)
2006, 110 min., OST1: Russian with English subtitles (OST without English subtitles), Directed by Pavel Lungin.
He was given a second life, a different time, and a strange place. Miracle and salvation await him. But only a miracle may save him...

THE OUTSKIRTS (OUT1) (DVD)
1998, 98 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Peter Lutsik.
A group of men fight injustice as they try to discover who stole their land. Their hunt for the offenders takes them from the gentle countryside to the halls of power. In this extraordinary epic - a political thriller in the tradition of Z and Weekend - Peter Lutsik creates an astounding chronicle of a country in violent transformation.

THE OVERCOAT (OVE) (VHS)
1959, 73 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Alexei Batalov.
This adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's short story of the same name depicts a poor, degraded clerk in 18th century Russia.

PASSIONS (PASS) (DVD)
1994, 112 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Kira Muratova.
A winner of Russia's Nika Awards for Best Film and Best Director, this drama follows the romances and heartbreaks experienced by two young women who become fascinated by the world of professional horse racing and attracted to the sportsmen involved with it.

PECULIARITIES OF THE NATIONAL FISHING (PEC) (DVD)
1998, 94 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Aleksandr Rogozhkin.
A planned fishing trip goes hilariously awry when three best friends find themselves lost in Finland with no fishing equipment or vodka. This is clearly a disaster of the highest order and the traveling buddies reach their breaking point in this hit comedy, which was the third in a series featuring the same trio of characters.

PETER THE GREAT (PEE) (VHS)
1986, 380 min, English.  Directed by Marvin Chomsky and Lawrence Schiller.
Russia at the dawn of the 18th century—a vast, chilling mysterious land, almost medieval. A country led by a man whose curious, questing spirit is eager to learn all that is new. A monarch who brings his feudal country into the modern world. The power plays, love affairs and international intrigues are brought to life by a stellar cast, featuring Oscar winners Maximilian Schell, Vanessa Redgrave and Laurence Olivier.

PETER THE FIRST (PET1, PET2) (VHS)
1940, Part I: 102 min., Part II: 100 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by V. Petrov.
A two-part dramatization of Peter the Great's life, his struggle to drag Russia towards modern European lifestyles, and customs and the wars with Sweden to gain control of the Baltic Sea.

PIQUE DAME (PIQ) (VHS)
1960, 103 min., Russian with English subtitles.
The Bolshoi Opera presents Tchaikovsky's opera based on Pushkin's short story “The Queen of Spades”.

PIRATES OF THE XXTH CENTURY (PIR) (DVD)
1979, 83 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Boris Durov.
Russian cinema isn't well known for its action pictures, but this box office hit is more exciting than many Hollywood blockbusters and includes some thrilling martial arts combat to go along with the gunplay. Modern day pirates hijack a ship to steal its cargo of pharmaceutical opium, but when some brave members of the crew fight back, it leads to a deadly battle to the finish. Based loosely on a true story.

PITER FM (PIT; PIT1) (DVD)
2006, 84 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Oksana Bychnova.
Masha is a DJ on a popular Petersburg radio, Maksim is a young architect. Masha is preparing for her wedding to former classmate Kostya, Maksim won an international architects' competition and now is invited to work in Germany. But both are not sure that this is exactly what they need. Until now Masha did not know if she loved Kostya or was simply accustom to him. Maksim is afraid that working in Germany will impede his life dream to design a wonderful building in St. Petersburg. Who knows what changed their fate, if Masha had not lost her cell phone and Maksim had not found it…
This is a lyrical history of two young people who find themselves at life's crossroads when everyone should decide what is truly important for him/herself. The pulsing organism of the megapolis, the bitter partings and new meetings, and finally, time itself, in which the heroes live, is intimately intertwined with every fate so as to bring them together.

PLANETA BURG (PLA) (DVD)
1962, 73 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Pavel Klushantsev
A serious and visually interesting science fiction film from the Soviet Union, footage from which was later used in Curtis Harrington's Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and the Roger Corman production Voyage to the Planet of the Historic Women (assembled by Peter Bogdanovich). This is the original (and much better) version, a compelling adventure in which Cosmonauts land on Venus and face the peril of alien monsters. A.K.A. Planet of Storms.

PRINCE IGOR (PRI) (VHS)
1969, 105 min., Russian with English subtitles.
The Kirov Opera presents Borodin's opera of the same name.

PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAINS (VHS version PRIS; DVD version PRISD)
1996, 99 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Sergei Bodrov.
Based on Leo Tolstoy's classic tale of hope, courage, and humanity, this film follows the journey of two Russian POWs held captive in the Caucasus Mountains.

PROVERKA NA DOROGAKH (Checkpoints on the Road) (PRO1) (VHS)
1973, Russian without English subtitles. Directed by R. Bykov.
This World War II film was banned for fifteen years because of its unorthodox image of former P.O.W.s.

QUIET FLOWS THE DON (QUI) (DVD)
1957, 330 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Sergei Gerasimov.
Based on Mikhail Sholokhov's Nobel Prize winning novel, this movie is a spectacular, sprawling epic of the Russian Revolution and an honest, intimate drama of two lovers lost in the storm of history. Within the sylvan hills of Russia's Don River valley, Grigori, a fiery and cruel young Cossack, takes up with Aksiniya, the wife of a fellow warrior. The brawling beauty of Cossack village life and the violent upheaval of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution form a spectacular backdrop for a romance as real as it is tragic. Driven to deception and disgrace, the two lovers battle the condemnation of the old order and the dangers of a dawning new world.

RASPUTIN (AGONY) (RAS) (VHS)
1985, 104 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Elem Klimov.
History's most bizarre madman comes to life in this story of the illiterate "prophet" who brought Russia to its feet and sparked the revolution that toppled the throne. Klimov captures the rise of the monstrous Rasputin, his influence over the royal court, and his lust for power that eventually threatens the House of Romanoff and all of Russia.

REPENTANCE (REP1) (VHS)
1987, 151 min., Georgian with English subtitles. Directed by Tenghize Abdulazze.
A breakthrough Soviet film, a surrealist masterpiece. Set in a mysterious, fictional Russian province, where a woman is arrested for repeatedly digging up the body of a despotic local ruler. It is a brutal allegorical satire of Stalinist rule.

THE RETURN (RET) (DVD)
2003, 106 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev.
Elegant cinematography highlights Andrey Zvyagintsev's gripping psychological thriller that looks at two young brothers who are forced to deal with the return of their father who had abandoned them years prior. Upon his return, the father orders the boys to accompany him on a fishing trip, which tests the boys endurance and, eventually, their sanity. A powerful, perfectly realized film, The Return won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice International Film Festival and the Discovery of the Year Award at the European Film Awards. "Brilliant...One of those unnerving films that lingers in the mind long after the lights come up" (Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly).

THE RIDER NAMED DEATH (RND) (DVD)
2004, 106 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Karen Shakhnazarov.
Vanya, Fyodor and Erna are part of Georges' secret band of turn-of-the-century revolutionaries. They repeatedly attempt to murder Grand Duke Aleksandrovich, but fail as each member of the group fight to stay alive while grappling with their own internal doubt and strife. But the personal vacuum that has driven Georges to an extremist fringe outside society may prove to be his most potent weapon. Mired in a romantic limbo between Erna and the beautiful married aristocrat, and torn between apathy and a desire to destroy, Georges must find both a way and a reason to finish the job he started. Based on Boris Savinkov's autobiographical novel, The Pale Horse.

ROAD TO LIFE (ROA1) (VHS)
1931, 100 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Nikolai Ekk.
Orphaned youths collect into gangs following the turmoil caused by Russia's Revolutionary and Civil wars. Mustafa leads one band sent to be reformed in an experimental program. Despite a caring teacher, change is complicated by new trades and their inescapable criminal pasts.

RUSSIAN ARK (ARK; ARK2) (DVD)
2002, 96 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Alexander Sokurov
Alexander Sokurov's cinematic tour-de-force follows a modern filmmaker who magically finds himself transported to the 18th century. There, he embarks on a time-traveling journey through 300 years of Russian history. Filmed with a cast of thousands, three live orchestras and an army of technicians, Russian Ark is the longest uninterrupted shot in film history and the first feature film ever created in a single take.

THE SACRIFICE (SAC) (DVD)
1986, 145 min., Russian and Swedish with English subtitles. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
A dark and complex drama about redemption and nuclear holocaust. When a middle-aged intellectual in retirement on an island in the Baltic Seas witnesses signs of what he believes to be a nuclear holocaust, he offers to make the ultimate sacrifice in return for the salvation of humankind.

SADKO (SAD) (DVD)
1952, 90 min. Russian with English subtitles. Other subtitle options include: Russian, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Swedish, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese. Directed by Alexander Ptushko.
Alexander Ptushko's colorful fantasy follows the seafaring adventures of the bearded hero from Novgorod, who must find and capture the elusive Bird of Happiness in order to free the city from an oppressive despot. Based on the eponymous Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov opera, Sadko was later re-edited and re-dubbed for a 1962 release in the U.S. under the title The Magic Voyage of Sinbad.

SAKHAROV (SAK) (VHS)
1984, 118 min., English.
Sakharov, a nuclear physicist and father of Russia's H-Bomb, enjoys a privileged status in the Soviet Union until he and his wife challenge the system that controls them. In the midst of personal heartbreak and internal exile, Sakharov receives the Nobel Peace Prize.

THE SCAM (SCAM) (DVD)
2001, 87 minutes, Russian with Russian, English, French, Spanish, and German subtitles. Directed by Andrei Davydov
Andrei Davydov, a successful businessman and former physicist, plots an unprecedented scam aimed at causing a downfall of the world's financial markets. He has no doubt that he will succeed, but it's a dangerous game. Especially when love interferes with his carefully thought-out scheme...

SCARECROW (SCA)
1985, 101 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Rolan Bykov.
Called the Soviet Lord of the Flies, Scarecrow is a haunting and touching film about a little girl who is ostracized by her cruel classmates. She learns about mob psychology the hard way, registering her bitter comprehension with a luminously expressive face. Available at Herman B. Wells Library in Kent Cooper Room-Video Browsing Area.

THE SEA GULL (SEA) (VHS)
1971, 99 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Yuli Karasik.
A sensitive, exquisitely acted version of Chekhov's great play set in provincial Russia. It is a penetrating study of the languid melancholia of the residents of an isolated country estate.

SECOND CIRCLE (SEC) (VHS)
1990, 90 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Alexander Sokurov.
A man confronts his father's death in a society cut off from spiritual values.

SEEKERS OF HAPPINESS (SEE) (DVD)
1934, 84 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Vladimir Korsch-Sabin.
During the late 1920s, many improvised Jews searching for a better life made their way to Birobidzhan, the Soviet Jewish Autonomous Region on the Chinese border. This melodrama tells the story of a Jewish family’s immigration to Birobidzhan and their experiences as settlers on a collective farm in the area. While the family encounters hardships in adjusting to this new way of life (including son-in-law Pinya’s greedy, misguided search for gold), the character’s assimilation is ultimately shown as positive. While the film is essentially a Soviet propaganda piece emphasizing the utopian dream of Birobidzhan as a socialist Jewish homeland, the reality of the are was harsh and inhospitable.

SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS (SHA) (VHS)
1964, 99 min., In Ukrainian with English subtitles. Directed by Sergei Paradjanov.
Sergei Paradjanov's masterpiece, a brilliant, epic story of star-crossed lovers set against the ethnographic panorama of the Carpathian Mountains. The film is a visual tour-de-force of symbols, metaphor, lyrical photography and active camera as it interweaves myth and narrative into an elliptical, seamless work of art. Its images "become superimposed on the mind, and will emerge later with a new and more profound meaning, a meaning that escapes logical analysis, that cannot be grasped intellectually, but which calls upon us to respond with feeling" (Robert Walke). With Ivan Nikolaichuk and Larisa Kadochnikova.

SIBERIADE (SIBE) (VHS)
1979, 206 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky.
Spanning more than six decades of Russian history encompassing the Bolshevik Revolution, two World Wars and the era of modernization, Siberiade is a passionate and ambitious examination of the Soviet spirit, as represented in two families of opposing ideologies: the proletariat Ustyuzhanins and the wealthy Solomins.

SIBIRSKII TSIRIUL’NIK (BARBER OF SIBERIA) (SIB1) (DVD)
1999, 177 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov.
A foreign entrepreneur, played by Richard Harris, travels to Siberia with his assistant Jane, played by Julia Ormond.  Jane falls in love with a young Russian officer, played by the Russian star Oleg Menshikov, who is banished to Siberia by Jane’s jealous admirer, the Grand Duke.  Set in turn of the century Russia, the film is a story of love, betrayal and the capacity of the human spirit.

SIDEBURNS (SID) (VHS)
1990, 100 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Yuri Mamin.
A wild and woolly satire that pits a clique of young Russian rightists called "The Pushkin Club" against an anti-establishment rock group. While the rebellious rockers are downright vulgar, the seemingly respectable "Pushkinists" represent the real danger to society, recalling the early Nazis in their militaristic mindset and xenophobic attitudes.

THE SILENT REVOLUTION: WHAT DO THOSE OLD FILMS MEAN, Vol. 3 (SIL) (VHS)
1926-1932, 52 min, silent/sound. Directed by Grigori Kozintsev/various German directors.
A landmark series of six programs produced for Britain's Channel 4 by one of the world's great film historians, Noel Burch. Burch takes us on a spellbinding journey into the early years of filmmaking in six countries--Great Britain, the U.S., Denmark, France, the U.S.S.R. and Germany. Using beautifully transferred prints gathered from the world's archives, Burch looks at how and why film became an art, and how it reflected social needs and problems. Each silent film is accompanied by a newly commissioned musical score in this unique look at how the whole art of film came into being. Great Britain, 1987.

Born Yesterday: U.S.S.R., 1926-1930 focuses on the sexual politics of the Soviet cinema during a time of virulent change. Important films like The House on Trubnaya Square by Boris Barnet, Ermler's Katka's Apples and Remnants of an Empire, Vertov's Kino-Eye and Kozintsev and Trauberg's The Devil's Wheel are included. Under Two Flags: Germany, 1926-1932 surveys some of the silent German cinema that is virtually unknown today, including People on Sunday, which boasted the talents of Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak and Edgar Ulmer. Also featured are Brecht and Dudow's Kuhle Wampe, Jutzi's Berlin Alexanderplatz and other films that were part of the "populist" cinema of the Weimar Republic. Ironically, these films were ultimately replaced by the more palatable and cheerful films of Siodmak and Wilder and an environment that aided the victory of Nazism. 52 min.

A SLAVE OF LOVE (SLA) (VHS)
1978, 94 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov.
It is 1918 and the Bolshevik Revolution has just taken place. In southern Russia a film crew is attempting to finish a romantic melodrama, oblivious to the tide of change about to engulf them. Only the beautiful leading lady is able to recognize the political realities, as falling in love with a Bolshevik cameraman she finds herself caught up in the forces of transformation.

SOLARIS (SOL) (DVD)
1971, 167 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
From a futuristic orbiting space station come reports of strange behavior and unexplained hallucinations from the cosmonauts who inhabit it. The mind-bending images and altered consciousness surrounding the film seem to emanate from the planet itself as it communicates with its visitors, creating a psychological thriller.

THE SORCERER'S BOY (SOR) (VHS)
1984, 15 min. (Teletales, No. 11).
In this Russian tale, a sorcerer, masquerading as a teacher, turns Peter into a toad, a dove, and a horse. Suitable for lower elementary.

STALKER (STA1) (VHS)
1979, in Russian with no English subtitles. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
Tarkovsky ventures on a Dante-esque journey into a mysterious region known as the "Zone." Sealed off by troops and barbed wire, the Zone is a hybrid of industrial wasteland and primeval forest, where mirages and mind-bending traps await the unwary traveler. Special guides, the Stalkers, have powers that enable them to penetrate the Zone.

THE STEAMROLLER AND THE VIOLIN (STE1) (DVD)
1960, 43 min., In Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
Rescued from Russian film archives, this was Andrei Tarkovsky's diploma film for the Soviet State Film School. Before this video release, it was largely unseen even by some of the director's most fervent admirers. The story is a warm yet ironic one about the unlikely friendship between a young boy who loves to play the violin and a steamroller driver. In this simple yet deeply affecting early film, you can already appreciate the emerging talent of an artist who would go on to create some of the most profound works of world cinema. The film was co-written by Tarkovsky's fellow student, Andrei Konchalovsky.

THE STONE FLOWER (STO1) (VHS)
1990, 107 min.
Performed by the Bolshoi Ballet, this ballet was Prokofiev's last. Drawing on the rich heritage of Russian folk culture, the ballet recounts the story of the young stonecutter, Danila, betrothed to Katerina, but obsessed with creating the perfect malachite object. When the spirit of stone appears to him as the enticing Mistress of the Copper Mountain, he must decide between artistic perfection and the simple love of his village sweetheart.

STORM OVER ASIA (STOR) (DVD)
1928, 70 min., Silent with music track with English titles. Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin.
Vsevolod Pudovkin's epic of an exploited Mongolian fur trader who becomes involved in the Mongolian uprising against the British during the Civil War period. It is "the film of the destiny of the Occident, although its action takes place in the heart of Asia, on the plateaus of Tibet" (Robert Desnos). Notable for Pudovkin's lyrical/psychological montage which ends in an incredible storm scene which contains "all the dust and debris that Pudovkin could imagine. But how else was Pudovkin to end a film whose attraction for him had been its fable and exotic imagery, except by hyperbole?" (Jay Leyda). With Valeri Inkizhinov, I. Inkizhinov and A. Chistiakov.

THE STROLL (PROGULKA) (PROG-1) (DVD)
2003, 90 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Alexei Uchitels.
Watch the exploits of three young romantics as they dance around St. Petersburg, Russia, getting themselves involved in everything from a soccer riot to a rainstorm to a fight between best friends. Set in mostly real time, Olya, Alyosha and Petya act as if the world is their due and they live to enjoy every moment of it.

THE TALE OF TIME LOST (TALE) (DVD)
1964, 80 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Alexander Ptushko.
As a director, writer, animator and special effects designer, Alexander Ptushko was responsible for some of the most visually impressive fantasy films of Russian cinema. Here he brings to life a fairy tale about four old sorcerers who trade places with four lazy schoolchildren in order to regain their youth. Later, the kids discover that they can only change back to their former selves at an exact time and place or they will be stuck with the short remaining years of the sorcerers.

TAXI BLUES (TAX) (VHS)
1990, 110 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Pavel Lounguine.
Pavel Lounguine's first feature is a harsh critique of contemporary Soviet society, captured through the bleak and paternalistic relationship of a hard-drinking, fascist, anti-Semitic taxi driver and a dependent, alcoholic Jewish saxophonist. With a brilliant jazz score.

TCHAIKOVSKY (TCH) (DVD)
1971, 153 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Igor Talankin.
Nominated for the 1971 Best Foreign Film Academy Award, Tchaikovsky demonstrates the inseparability of the composer’s music from his life, as each moment of happiness and tragedy is expressed through the magnificent ballets, operas, symphonies and love songs that flow from his pen. These masterpieces become an integral part of the film, given cinematic expression through Talankin’s sure-handed direction and the lavish resources afforded him by Mosfims Studios. The resulting film evokes such spectacles as Amadeus and Dr. Zhivago, a lavish cinematic symphony of choreographed sound and image, filmed at great expense in Russia, France, and England.

THE THEME (THE) (VHS)
1979, 100 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Gleb Panfilov.
The story involves the turmoil experienced by a Soviet dramatist who is vacationing in the Suzdal region. His discontent becomes pronounced as he questions the validity of his success and struggles with writer's block, while nevertheless absorbing the praise lavished upon him by his admirers.

THE THIEF (VHS version THIE; DVD version THIE1)
1997, 93 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Pavel Chukrai.
This widely acclaimed film is arresting as both an intense drama about a troubling family dynamic, and as an allegory about the tension that filled the Soviet Union in the early years of the Cold War. Told through the eyes of a young boy born to a homeless mother, the story charts their "rescue" by a mysterious stranger, who may or may not have been an army officer, and his uneasy relationship with his new family. Winner of the International Youth Jury's prize, the President of the Italian Senate's Gold Medal, and the UNICEF Award at the 1997 Venice Film Festival. Winner for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Original Score at Russia's 1997 Nika Awards, and an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

THREE SONGS OF LENIN (THR) (VHS)
1934, 62 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Dziga Vertov.
Three short films pay homage to the life of Russia's charismatic leader.

THREE FROM SOUR CREAM VILLAGA & OTHER STORIES (TRO) (DVD)
Russian without English subtitles. This DVD contains seven classic Russian children’s cartoons and would be suitable for all levels of Russian language students:
Three From Sour Cream Village (1978, 19 min)
Vacation in Sour Cream Village (1980, 19 min)
Winter in Sour Cream Village (1984, 17 min)
Strawberries Under the Snow (1994, 10 min)
Blind Man’s Bluff (10 min)
Boy is a Boy (10 min)
Who’s First? (1950, 10 min)

TYCOON: A NEW RUSSIAN (TYC) (DVD)
2002 , 128 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Pavel Lounguine.
Crime drama based on the life of notorious billionaire Boris Berezovsky, a Russian entrepreneur whose seductive and brutal climb to the top in the post-Soviet era flourishes as the line between business, crime and politics breaks down.

UNFINISHED PIECE FOR PLAYER PIANO (UNF1) (VHS)
1977, 100 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov.
A bittersweet, humorous tapestry of human folly and lost dreams, this film, loosely based on Chekhov's play Platonov, chronicles the interlocking events on a warm summer day at the decaying estate of an aging widow.

VODITEL’ DLIA VERY (A DRIVER FOR VERA) (VOD) (DVD)
2004, 112 min. Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Pavel Chukhrai
This story of love and political intrigue is set in Sevastopol, Crimea in the year 1962. Vera falls in love with Viktor, the chauffeur hired by her father, General Serov, but Viktor is attracted to the beautiful housekeeper Lida. Meanwhile, a power struggle between the KGB and the Soviet Army threatens not only these relationships but the lives of thousands of others.

VOLGA VOLGA (VOL) (VHS)
1937, 90 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Grigori Alexandrov.
An unseen miracle of 1930's Soviet cinema, Volga Volga is a revalation, as popular and familiar to Russian audiences as Gone with the Wind is to American audiences. Yet this classic musical comedy that catapulted Lyubov Orlova into a Russian mega star, has ever been available to us, until now! The setting is a giant steamboat making its way up the Volga River. On board is a motley collection of amateur singers and dancers travelling to Moscow to participate in a musical contest. At their center is Lyubov Orlova, the great Soviet comedienne and musical star. A triumphant success upon its release, Volga Volga remains one of the most important and best loved films produced by the Soviet regime.

VOVOCHKA (VOV) (DVD)
2002, 95 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Andrei Maksimov.
Vovochka is a spontaneous ten-year-old boy with an insatiable knack for getting into trouble. This light, humorous family film from Russia, which spawned a television series, follows the boy's path of innocent destruction in a quiet suburban Moscow village in the days prior to the New Year holidays.

WAR AND PEACE (WAP) (DVD)
1967, 403 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Sergei Bondarchuk.
The definitive film version of Tolstoy's epic novel about how Napoleon's 1812 Russian invasion affects two upper class families. Winner of the 1968 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, it was shot over five years, with over 120,000 extras for battle scenes, nearly 300 sets, 2,000 costumes and production design and art direction culled from more than 40 Russian museums. The film is notable for its gritty authenticity and its panoramic social and political portraits, especially the battle of Borodino.

WE ARE GOING TO AMERICA (WEA) (VHS)
1992, 118 min. Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Efim Gribov.
Russian filmmaker Efim Gribov crafts a tragic-comic tale of one family's journey out of the shtetl and into a world of unknowns. Inspired by the paintings of Marc Chagall, the voyage is seen through the eyes of the 11-year-old Motl, who encounters comic and grotesque figures; the dreamy orphan Taibl, the Felliniesque madwoman Feigele; and an assortment of ghosts from the past. Luminous cinematography and atmospheric sets create a sense of wonder and chaotic adventure as this family makes its way towards America.

THE WEDDING (WEDD) (DVD)
2000, 114 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Pavel Lungin.
The main character returns home to a small mining town after a long time spent away. The girl had left for Moscow and, having experienced life in the capital, is returning to her first love.

WINDOW TO PARIS (WIN) (VHS)
1995, 92 min., Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Yuri Mamin.
A wildly-inventive comedy that alternates romance with outrageous slapstick. Window to Paris is the story of a young musician who discovers a magic window which takes him from his rundown Russian apartment to the streets of Paris.

WINGS (WIN1) (VHS)
1996, 90 min., Russian with English subtitles, Directed by Larisa Shepitko.
The fascinating portrait of a once-famous female fighter pilot, a loyal Stalinist, who cannot adjust to peacetime life. Regarded as Sheptiko's most controversial film, Wings, like Tarkovsky's The Mirror, addresses how Stalinism had permeated every aspect of daily life. Nadezhda Petrovna, a 41-year-old provincial school mistress and unmarried guardian of an adopted daughter, is forced to deal with the painful defenses she has developed against a generation of students who appear to be blind to the political passions that inspired youth in her time and made her a national hero.

THE WINTER WAR (WINT) (DVD)
1989, 125 min., Finnish with English subtitles. Directed by Pekka Parikka.
Based on Antti Tuuri's book Talvisota, this internationally acclaimed epic portrays the brutal war fought by Finnish soldiers to preserve their country's independence against the overwhelming, invading Soviet army in 1939-40.

YOU I LOVE (YIL) (DVD)
2004, 83 min., Russian with English and French subtitles, Directed by Olga Stolpovskaya.
Vera and Tim are successful, young professionals in modern Moscow. Their fast-paced lives crackle with the capitalist energy of excess, consumption and stress - and they are in love. But everything changes one night when Tim's car accidentally hits a cute, young guy named Uloomji who works at the zoo. When the two men begin a torrid love affair, Vera finds herself dragged into a bizarre and hilarious love triangle.

ZOLUSHKA (ZOL) (DVD)
1947, 105 min., Russian without subtitles. Directed by Nadezhda Kosheverova.
A tale of yore, which was born several centuries ago, and which has lived on ever since…" The authors of this picture retell the tale of Cinderella with such tenderness, humor, and humanity that many future generations will enjoy this film. This version of Cinderella centers on the daughter of a forester, who, insulted by her step-mother, receives a magical visitor. The guest is a witch, who with her charming page and magic wand, turns a tattered gown into an elegant ball dress. With a wave of her wand, the witch turns a pumpkin into a golden carriage, harnessed by horses. In this carriage, Cinderella travels to a ball, held by a fairy-tale king, and there she falls in love with a prince...

Note: All Central Asian films have been moved to the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center. Please contact them if you would like to borrow one of these movies. iaunrc@indiana.edu or (812) 856-5263.

Russian and East European Institute | College of Arts and Sciences | Ballantine Hall 565, Bloomington, IN 47405 | Ph: (812) 855-7309 | Fx: (812) 855-6411 | reei@indiana.edu | Copyright 2006 Trustees of Indiana University