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Indiana University Bloomington
 
Summer Language Study (SWSEEL)
Russian and East European Institute
Documentaries on Russia and the CIS
Titles in red were acquired during the 2007-2008 academic year



ABC NEWS: RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS (ABC1-ABC6)

March 2000
This weeklong Nightline series looked at crime, the military, politics, sexual freedom, and the difficulty of making ends meet in the Russian Federation.

  • Sex in Russia (ABC1)
  • Russian Television (ABC2)
  • Russian Military (ABC3)
  • Crime in Russia (ABC4)
  • Who is Boris Berezovsky? (ABC5)
  • The Next Russian President (ABC6)

AKVARIUM: 30 LET (DVD) (AKV)
2002, 142 min., in Russian with English-language menu screens.
Concert footage: A live filming of Akvarium and special guests at "Luzhniki” playing thirty songs for their 30th year anniversary celebration. Bonus track includes a history of the group and Boris Grebenshchikov.

ALL THE BEST FROM RUSSIA (ALL1)
1977, 52 min.
The best in ballet, folk-dancing, and all-round entertainment from inside Russia. Includes the Bolshoi Ballet, Don Cossack dancers, the Armenian Folk Ensemble, and the incomparable treasures in the fabulous Hermitage Museum.

ANASTASIA: DEAD OR ALIVE (ANA)
1995, 60 min.
Did Anastatsia Romanov die with the rest of her family in that Yekaterinburg cellar in July 1918? Or was she really Anna Anderson, the mysterious young woman who surfaced in Berlin in 1922 and later moved to the United States? This NOVA documentary attempts to tackle this mystery, examining among other things the genetic makeup of the bodies found in a mass grave unearthed in Siberia.

ANIMATED SOVIET PROPAGANDA (ANI) (DVD)
1924-1984, Russian with English subtitles.

  • DISC 2: FASCIST BARBARIANS (110 min.) is a 17 film reaction to the Nazi invasion of 1941. After breaking the non-aggression pact and declaring war, the Nazis became animals in the propaganda films, turning into snarling warthogs and depraved vultures.
  • DISC 3: CAPITALIST SHARKS (99 min.) contains six films that take on the bourgeoisie the world over - and sometimes beyond. In Interplanetary Revolution (1924), capitalists escaping to Mars discover the revolution has spread throughout the galaxy.
  • DISC 4: ONWARD TO THE SHINING FUTURE: COMMUNISM (118 min.) contains 11 works, most of which mythologize the state and envision the inevitable utopias of the future. Dziga Vertov's Soviet Toys (1924), however, offers criticism of the state and satirizes the communist members who cashed in on Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP), which introduced a limited form of capitalist enterprise.

Containing more than five hours of rare material in all, this DVD set offers a fascinating look at the history of Soviet propaganda. It is an invaluable resource that displays how one of the greatest powers wanted their people to envision the rest of the world, as well as being an idiosyncratic tour through Russia's rich and varied history of animated art.

AN APPEAL TO THE JEWS OF THE WORLD (APP)
1941, 6 min., Russian, Yiddish and English with English subtitles.
Historic Russian newsreel footage, produced in 1941, in which a group of some of the Soviet Union's most prominent Jewish writers and artists appealed to Jews throughout the world to join the Soviet people in their fight against Fascism. Film director Sergei Eisenstein, actor Solomon Mikhoels and poet Peretz Markish are among the notable figures making a plea to the viewing audience.

ART AND SPIRITUALITY: THE RUSSIAN ICON (ART1 and ART2)
Ideal supplementary material or stand-alone presentation for Art and History courses, Russian area studies classes, theology classes, or advanced Russian-language classes (Russian version). Available in Russian and English.

A.R.M. AROUND MOSCOW (ARM)
1994, 75 min., Directed and Edited by Jeanne C. Finley and Gretchen Stoeltje.
Four times a year Los Angeles businessman Ron Rollband, owner of American- Russian Matchmaking (A.R.M), brings 15 American men to Moscow to meet over 500 potential Russian brides. A.R.M Around Moscow explores what happens when mutual fantasy collides with the reality of post cold-war, cross cultural marriage.

THE AVANT-GARDE IN RUSSIA (AVA)
1993, 89 min.
Through painting, architecture, sculpture, theatre, film, and fashion, the avant-garde of the arts in Russia explored primitivism, cubo-futurism, and productivism. The optimism and vitality of Russia's artists were quickly crushed by Social Realism, the official style of Soviet Message Art. This program presents examples of art produced before and after the controls and restrictions were placed on creative artists, and explores the effects and impact of state-controlled art.

BABYN YAR (BAB)
Ukrainian without subtitles.

THE BATTLE OF TSUSHIMA: 1905 JAPAN ENTERS THE WORLD SCENE (BAT1)
1991, 41 min.
This program traces the opening of Japan imposed by the shoguns, the arrival of Commodore Perry, the modernist attitudes of the Meji Emperor. It covers Japan's declaration of war on China in 1894; the Treaty of Shimonosaki, which grated Japan huge reparations, the island of Formosa, Port Arthur in Manchuria, and a kind of protectorate in Korea; and the resulting alliance between Russia and China, which would set the stage for the confrontation between Russia and Japan. The program sets the stage in St. Petersburg as well as on the seas, as the tempests that would batter the twentieth century were set in motion.

THE BETRAYED (BET)
1995, 78 min.
This video looks at Russia's war with Chechnya through the eyes of mothers of some of the Russian soldiers who were missing in action after the attack on Grozny. The Betrayed portrays a very human side to the Chechen war, a side not typically seen through the media.

BETWEEN HITLER AND STALIN: UKRAINE IN WORLD WAR II - THE UNTOLD STORY (BHST)
2004, 58 min. In English. Directed by Slavko Nowytski.
Eye witness accounts and scholarly analyses illustrate the tragic history and the valiant struggle of the Ukrainian nation caught between two enemy occupations: Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. A project by the Ukrainian Research & Documentation Centre, this film premiered in Toronto in September 2003. Narrated by Jack Palance.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES (BETW)
2001, 50 min.
A New documentary details the awful predicament that faced 153 Russian prisoners held at Fort Dix at the end of WWII. Between Two Fires exposes how Russian anti-Communists were captured and held on American soil during W.W.II, only to be forcibly repatriated in an effort to placate Stalin-an egregious violation of the Geneva Convention Agreement. This film garnered a Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary in the 2002 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, a Bronze Oscar in the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences' 27th Annual Student Academy Awards, a CINE Eagle, and first place in the Spindle Top Film Festival.

BEYOND OUR BORDERS: RUSSIA (BEY-3) (DVD)
30 min.
A new cultural geography series geared toward teaching students about the geography and history of the world's major countries. Helps students understand other peoples' environments, values, and significant historical contributions. The DVD also features maps that clarify geographical data such as a country's global location, major regions, and important cities. Here one can see Russia's most important regions and natural wonders such as the Ural Mountains, the Volga River, Siberia, and Lake Baikal. One also understands more fully the changes free enterprise is bringing to Russia.

BEYOND OUR BORDERS: UKRAINE (BEY-4) (DVD)
30 min.
A new cultural geography series geared toward teaching students about the geography and history of the world's major countries. Helps students understand other peoples' environments, values, and significant historical contributions. The DVD also features maps that clarify geographical data such as a country's global location, major regions, and important cities. Ukraine's greatest city, Kiev, has its own renown and historical treasures, as have other cultural and environmental sites such as Pechersk Monastery, medieval castles, the Crimea, and the heartland city of Lviv. In Ukraine rich agriculture, Orthodox religious traditions, communist-era monuments, and resilient people intermingle.

THE BIRTH OF SOVIET CINEMA (BIR)
1996, 49 min.
The Communist government attracted some of the most brilliant and innovative writers-directors-producers in the history of cinema, who used this new medium to stage plots centered on the Party line: the heroism of the people, the cruelty of the upper classes, the joys of communal action and service to Mother Russia. This program presents an anthology of scenes from the most striking and famous of these films, including Eisenstein's Strike, Potemkin and October; Pudovkin's Mother, End of St. Petersburg and Storm over Asia; and Dovzhenko's Arsenal and Earth.

THE BLACK TULIP (BLAC)
27 min.
Understanding the impact of the Afghan War on Soviet society is essential to an understanding of glasnost and perestroika. Even though Soviet troops have been withdrawn, that is not the end of the story. As the Vietnam War changed our society, so too has the Afghan war changed Soviet society. This is a remarkable look at the human impact of the war on the Soviets. The soldiers' words are reminiscent of Vietnam. These scenes are followed by visits to a Soviet cemetery, where many of the soldiers who died in Afghanistan were buried.

BOUGHT & SOLD: AN INVESTIGATIVE DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN WOMEN (BOU)
1998, 42 min.
Produced & Directed by Gillian Caldwell. Completed in October of 1997, Bought & Sold is an investigative documentary about the international trade in women, and includes new material from Global Survival Network's two-year undercover investigation into the traffic in women for prostitution out of Russia. This video includes undercover footage of meetings with the Russian mafiya, interviews with women who were trafficked overseas and perspectives from experts from around the world about how to address the problem.

THE BRATSK SEA (BRA2)
2001, 50 min., in English.
This documentary looks at the social disaster that came along with the construction of a power plant in the city of Balagansk under the orders of the Soviet Union's Communist planners during the early '60s. Residents were sold on the project through propagandist news reporting, but the reality fell far short of the dream. The relocated residents found their new land had inferior soil, leading to farm production shortages, lack of water and other serious problems.

BUSINESS IN RUSSIA (BUS)
1994, 42 min.
Russian with no subtitles (third-year college Russian level). University of Kentucky Language Labs production features the adventures of Kevin and Katie, two young Americans who have decided to do business in the new Russia. Shot on location in Vladimir, Russia.

CHEKHOV (CHE)
1996, 53 min., Russian with English subtitles.
A superb documentary of the life, thoughts and great themes that made Chekhov the man and the artist, this film is also a superb Russian film. Set in Moscow in 1914, ten years after Chekhov's death, this program gives us Chekhov through the eyes of those who worked with him and loved him, using Russian documentary footage to make both the playwright and his time come to life.

CHILDREN OF THE SOVIET UNION (CHI)
1988, 22 min.
This documentary explores the life of Alyosha, a twelve year old boy living in the Soviet Union. The video introduces the viewer to the many facets of Soviet society and culture, presented against a rich backdrop of the Soviet Union's colorful history and geography.

CNN's COLD WAR SERIES
At last, the unclassified truth about an unusual struggle for world power. Applying a framework of both the ideological and military confrontations between the two Great Powers, each of these twenty-four consecutive episodes features a single compelling event. Using newly released footage to tell much of the story that began in 1945 and ended in 1960, Cold War takes the viewer inside the Pentagon, the Kremlin, and the missile sites in Cuba, to Yalta and Potsdam, Budapest and Berlin, to Hanoi and Panmunjon. A must-see for anyone who lived through these turbulent times. Belongs to the West European Studies Department. Please contact them at west@indiana.edu to inquire about checking out the series.

  • THE COLD WAR REMEMBERED Part I 1995.
    Thirteen 30-min programs (separate video cassettes) follow an informal discussion format, emphasizing the memories, stories, and analyses of participants representing all perspectives of the conflict. Each program covers a particular period of the Cold War years, with historical footage followed by reminiscences of the participants:
    • The Beginning: World War II Allies to Cold Warriors (COL101)
      Trace to 1917: Workers of the World, Unite; Yalta 1945; George Kennan's Containment; Marshall Plan Rebuilds Europe.
    • The Early Years (COL102)
      Truman Doctrine; Czech Coup 1948; Berlin Blockade and Airlift 1948-49; Germany is Split; "Who Lost China?" 1949
    • Cold War Crises (COL103)
      Formation of NATO 1950; Korean War 1950-52; Red Scare: Senator McCarthy and House Un-American Activities Committee; Stalin's Death and Malenkov's "new course"; Federal Republic of Germany Admitted to NATO 1953-54.
    • Krushchev's Push and De-Stalinization, 1955-57 (COL104)
      Hungarian Revolution 1956; First Outward signs of Sino-Soviet Split; Suez Crisis; Sputnik; Krushchev Shakes Up Leadership.
    • Cold War Heats Up (COL105)
      U2 Shoot-Down 1960; Berlin Wall 1961; Bay of Pigs 1961; Cuban Missile Crisis 1962.
    • Space Race (COL106)
      Krushchev Replaced by Kosygin and Brezhnev 1964; Prague Spring 1968; the Brezhnev Doctrine 1968.
    • The 1970's: The Coming and Going of Detente (COL107)
      Nixon Goes to China 1971; SALT 1972; Vietnam and the Proxy Wars; Yom Kippur War 1973; "The Gulag Archipelago"; SALT II; Helsinki 1975; Brezhnev Invades Afghanistan 1979.
    • The Final Years of the Old Guard (COL108)
      Olympic Boycott 1980; Deployment of Cruise and Pershing Missiles in Europe; Reagan Declares Russia is the "Evil Empire" and the American Military Build-Up; KAL 007 Downing 1983; SDI; Drift: Brezhnev to Andropov to Chernenko to Gorbachev.
    • Gorbachev's Reforms (COL109)
      Gasnost and Perestroika; New Era in Arms Control; Reagan-Gorbachev Sumits: Geneva 1985, Iceland 1986.
    • Signs of Unraveling (COL110)
      Price of Reform for Gorbachev; Privatization and the End of Price Controls; Hard-liners Hold On.
    • The Break-Up of the USSR (COL111)
      Decline: Baltic Revolts 1988; Fall of the Berlin Wall 1989; Failed Coup; Yeltsin Takes the Helm; A New Eastern Europe.
    • Retrospective: KGB vs. CIA (COL112)
      Spies and Counter Spies; Intelligence War; Terrorism; Industrial Espionage.
    • Where Do We Go From Here? (COL113)
      Post WWII Dream of Peace Long Delayed; Defining the New World Order; United States as Lone Superpower; Russia Struggles to Recover; American Role in Strengthening Russia; Future of NATO; Ethnic Strife; New Economic and Political Freedom in Eastern Europe.
  • THE COLD WAR REMEMBERED Part II
    1995, thirteen 30-min programs (separate video casettes) investigate the less visible side of the Cold War found in the discreet battles between the CIA and the KGB. Traces the two intelligence organizations from their seminal development through 1989. Same roundtable discussion format as the first series, with journalists, authors, scholars, and former intelligence personnel recounting their experiences and knowledge.
    • The Revolution and the Rise of Soviet Intelligence (COL201)
      CHEKA; NKVD.
    • Soviet Intelligence and WWII (COL202)
      Soviet Intelligence and the "Great War"; KGB.
    • WWII, The Cold War, and the Rise of the Security State in America (COL203)
      OSS; 1947: The National Security Act; DOD; CIA; NSC.
    • Role of the KGB in Post-WWII Soviet Politics (COL204)
      Quieting Dissent; Running the Gulags; Influence on Foreign Policy.
    • Role of National Security Establishments in American Politics (COL205)
      NSC Directives; Domestic Acitivites; Influence on Foreign Policy.
    • Intelligence Explosion (COL206)
      How Central is the Central Intelligence Agency?; Conflict with the FBI; DIA and the Other Agencies within the Armed Forces; The National Reconnaissance Administration; Conflicts within the Intelligence Community.
    • The KGB and CIA in Eastern Europe: The Central Front (COL207)
      Hungary 1956; Prague 1968; East Germany; Poland.
    • The Technology Race (COL208)
      The A-Bomb; The U2; Satellites
    • Vietnam (COL209)
      CIA Role in Vietnam; The War's Effect on the CIA; KGB Involvement; Congress: Pulling in the Reins on the CIA (Church Committee).
    • The Great Conspiracies (COL210)
      The Kennedy Assassination; Allende; The CIA and the Mafia; The CIA and Drugs; The CIA and Iran-Contra.
    • Before the Fall: What Both Sides Knew Before Communism Imploded (COL211)
      Was There an Intelligence Failure on Both Sides?; Did the CIA or KGB Do Anything to Encourage or Discourage the Fall of Communism?; Why Was the Intelligence Community Caught Off Guard?
    • The Future of Intelligence in the Post-Cold War World (Part I) (COL212)
      CIA's Role in the New World Order; The KGB and the End of the Soviet System.

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF YURI NORSTEIN (NORS)
2005 , Approx. 98 min.
Includes Norstein's first film, 25th - First Day (1968); Battle of Kerjenets (1971); Fox and Rabbit (1973); Heron and Crane (1974); Hedgehog in Fog (1975); and Tale of Tales (1978).

CONQUERORS: PETER THE GREAT (PET)
1997, Approx. 30 min.
Peter the Great dragged Russia out of the Dark Ages and into the modern world by creating strategic political alliances that advanced its economic might. Modernizing a country that has existed for centuries as a feudal backwater state was no easy task. Discover how this great Russian monarch's passion and perseverance spawned military victories, vibrant cities and a renewed national pride that made Russia a key player in a new world order.

CROSSROADS OF CONTINENTS (CRO)
33 min. In English.
A short documentary examining the history and culture of Siberia and Alaska, the crossroads of two continents.

CZARIST RUSSIA: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (CZA)
1979, 22 min.
Providing a background to the Russian revolution, this video uses stills of artwork to show life under the czars and the growing restlessness of the workers as liberated ideas infiltrate the autocratic and rigidly constructed society. Emphasis is on events leading to the government overthrow, emergence of Russian communism, industrial growth, and expansionist activities.

DATELINE: 1985, MOSCOW (DAT85)
1991, 23 min.
In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev assumed power in the Soviet Union, inheriting a war in Afghanistan, poor relations with the West, and a legacy of corruption, repression, bureaucracy, and a faltering economic system. This documentary traces the roots of the legacy which General Secretary Gorbachev inherited and examines the results of his policy of "glasnost"--openness, including a more open and critical Soviet media, the release of long-held political prisoners, a new age of detente with the West, and cessation of the war in Afghanistan.

DATELINE: 1987, THE SUMMIT (DAT87)
1991, 23 min.
This documentary traces the history of past US-Soviet summit meetings, from the first Big Four summit in Geneva in 1955 to the 1987 Washington, DC summit meeting between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

DATELINE MOSCOW (INS14) and INSIDE THE USSR (INS15)
1983, 30 min. each.
In this two-part INSIDE STORY series, the difficulties journalists have experienced in covering the Moscow beat since World War II is analyzed. Current coverage of the Soviet Union by both American and other correspondents is viewed.

DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD: COMMUNISM:THE FALL OF THE ROMANOVS AND THE BERLIN WALL (DCRB) (DVD)
2003, 51 min.
Fourth film in BBC World's "Days that Shook the World" series. The execution of the Romanovs, in 1918, marked Russia's irrevokable shift from a monarchy to a communist state. The destruction of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, signified the collapse of that state and its Marxist ideology. This gripping, realistic program cinematically dramatizes the events of these two historic watersheds: indelible emblems of the birth pains and death throes of the Soviet Union. The story begins at Ipatiev House, where a dynasty died, and ends at Checkpoint Charlie, where the will of the people spoke - and the gates to freedom opened. Original BBCW broadcast title: The Murder of the Romanovs and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

DISCOVER RUSSIA (DIS)
1990, 30 min.
Produced by the National Geographic Society, this video is a film journey through the old and new, from palaces of the tsars and the countryside of yesterday to vibrant city life under glasnost. Places visited include Leningrad, Moscow, Zagorsk, and Rostov-Veliki.

EARLY RUSSIA (EAR)
1979, 22 min.
A collage of artwork traces the development of Russia as a nation from its origins of loosely allied Viking trading posts through the reign of Peter the Great and the beginnings of Russia's modern history. Russian art and architecture are significant themes in portraying the early influence of Byzantium and the adoption of Eastern or Orthodox Christianity and the later influence of West European culture.

EASTERN & RUSSIAN ORTHODOXY (EARO)
25 min.
The Hagia Sophia temple in Constantinople may have inspired the adoption of Eastern Orthodoxy by Russia. Its influence on iconographic art, Russian literature, and the Russian people in conflict with Mongols and Communism is brought to life in this film. This title is one of eight 25 min. programs in the CHRISTIANITY IN WORLD HISTORY SERIES by New Dimension Media. Suitable for ages 6-12 & up.

EISENSTEIN AND STALIN: WHEN ART AND POLITICS CLASH (EIS)
1999, 59 min.
Drawing on sixty volumes of diaries and other recently revealed archival materials, this program presents the struggle between Joseph Stalin and Sergei Eisenstein, who fought for freedom of expression in a climate of exiles and executions. Rare clips of the preeminent Russian director's controversial films - including the deleted Trotsky scene in "October," the original ending of "The General Line," and recovered footage from the banned "Bezhin Meadow" - and interviews with the director of the Eisenstein Museum, friends, associates, and former students underscore the coercive power of Stalin's authoritarian regime.

ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA SERIES (ENC1-5) 1990, 5 Videos.

  • SETTING THE MOLD (ENC1)
    28 min. After a wartime alliance, an adversarial relationship developed between the United States and the Soviet Union in the years immediately following World War II. This video chronicles this relationship from 1945 to 1953 using archival film, newsreels, and interviews with American and Soviet journalists, historians, and newsmakers of the period.
  • CRACKING THE MOLD (ENC2)
    29 min. This video explores the circumstances surrounding President Dwight Eisenhower's decision in 1955 to hold the first post-World War II meetings with Soviet leadership after a decade of Cold War hostility.
  • THE MOLD BROKEN (ENC3)
    28 min. This video surveys the period from the end of World War II to the end of 1989 from the point of view of residents of Eastern Europe.
  • RECASTING THE MOLD (ENC4)
    30 min. This video describes the rise of nationalism in the 1960s among the postcolonial states of the Third World, and how these merging countries challenged the superpowers in new ways, forcing them to redefine their relationships in order to avoid nuclear conflict.
  • BREAKING THE MOLD (ENC5)
    30 min. This video examines the fluctuation in U.S.-Soviet relations in the decade and a half following Watergate and the Vietnam War, with focus on the roles played by American leaders Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Gorbachev.

ETERNAL MEMORY: VOICES FROM THE GREAT TERROR (ETER)
1997, 81 min. English. Directed by David Pultz, Narrated by Meryl Streep.
This historical documentary examines the Stalinist purges and terror in the Soviet Union during the Thirties and Forties when an estimated twenty million people lost their lives; some in labor camps, other starved in state-induces famine, and many others executed for "crimes against the state." Focusing on the Ukraine, the film incorporates historical footage, interviews with witnesses and survivors, public officials such as former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezinski and former KGB official Mykola Holushko, and such eminent historians as Robert Conquest of Stanford University and Roman Szporluk of Harvard University.

EVGUENI KHALDEI, PHOTOGRAPHER UNDER STALIN (EVG)
1997, 60 min. In Russian with English subtitles.
A sensitive and long overdue tribute to a war photographer whose vision was anything but subtle" (Clare Thomson, The Bulletin). With an artist's eye and a journalist's immediacy, Evgueni Khaldei chronicled some of the pivotal events of his time--from Red Square to the Budapest Ghetto, the fall of the Reichstag to Yalta, and the Nuremberg trials. Despite being hand-picked by Stalin, he was also a constant victim of state-approved anti-Semitism. In this film, he takes us into his home and opens up his entire photo library, covering some 60 years of Soviet and world history
.

FACE OF RUSSIA (FAC1-3)
1998, 54 min each.

  • Part I: The Face on the Firewood (FAC1)
    Reveals the spiritual ideas that have animated Russia for 1,000 years, witnesses recent restorations of churches and monasteries from Kiev to the Kremlin, and looks at icon painting, the first Russian art form.
  • Part II: The Facade of Power (FAC2)
    Examines Russian architecture, from the Eastern-inspired onion domes on churches to the Western-type palaces of unparalleled splendor. Also looks at the writings of Gogol, including Dead Souls, which still influences Russian artists today.
  • Part III: Facing the Future (FAC3)
    Explores the advance of Russian music and cinema, including the great composer Musorgsky, director Sergei Eisenstein, and looks at how new media forms are shaping Russia during its current time of change.

THE FALL OF THE ROMANOV DYNASTY (FAL)
1927, 90 min., English subtitles.
A daring and innovative document portraying the fall of the Czarist regime and the rise of Communist rule.

FAMILIES OF RUSSIA (FAM2)
2002, 30 min., In English.
Families of the World takes you on a fantastic journey to another country where you view the unique lives of two Russian children and their families.

FAULTLINES: RUSSIA: THE SEARCH FOR POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS LINKS (FAUL) (DVD)
2003, 37 min.
It is no irony that Victor Zorkaltsev, a Communist, is also the head of the religious committee of the Russian parliament, the Duma. It is also not an accident that the Russian government paid for an extraordinary replica of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour that is maintained by local businessmen. And if more than 80 percent of Russians describe themselves as Orthodox Christians, why do only 5 percent go to church regularly? These are three of many examples in this potent program that concentrates on the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church and how its aspirations to spiritual and political power pose a threat to the fundamental freedoms of many Russians.

FEAR AND MUSE: ANNA AKHMATOVA (FEAR)
1999, 60 min.
The story of Anna Akhmatova is told in this documentary with astonishing images - from the thriving art scene in Imperial Russia through war, revolution and famine, into the sixties when poetry readings would fill whole stadiums. Claire Bloom reads her work, Christopher Reeve narrates, Joseph Brodsky and other poets and scholars comment.

FINDING DZHULYNKA (FIND) (DVD)
2004, 42 min., English. Directed by Richard Rosing.
A year after Vladimir Rosing left Russia, the Russian Revolution arrived. He lost his family, his inheritance, and his country forever. He made a new life in England and America, but never forgot the people and places he loved so much. In September 2001, his American family returns to Russia on a mission of discovery looking for traces of the past Val Rosing left behind. What they find there is more than a memory—and nothing less than a miracle. Bonus features include a 22 minute educational background interview with Priscilla Roosevelt, author of “Life on the Russian Country Estate: A Social and Cultural History”, as well as a 31 minute compilation of rare historical recordings by famed Russian tenor Vladimir Rosing.

FILMFAIR COMMUNICATIONS
A series of documentaries examining Russian literature and history. (Films are shelved under individual title.)

  • ALEXANDER BLOK (ALE1)
    1991, 25 min.
    The Poet of Joy, Blok employed the themes of hope and of will to overcome barriers to freedom, as he decried the working class poverty of Petersburg that surrounded him.
  • ALEXANDER PUSHKIN (ALE2)
    1991, 25 min.
    Born into a life of ease, Pushkin gave spirited voice to calls for reform, inspired the citizenry, and incurred the wrath of the Czar.
  • ANTON CHEKHOV (ANT)
    1991, 25 min.
    Living in the years between the periods of great political upheaval, 1848 and 1905, Chekhov wrote about the pain, irony and curious workings of everyday Russian life.
  • BORIS PASTERNAK (BOR1)
    1991, 25 min.
    A poet and novelist, the 1957 publication of Pasternak's novel Dr. Zhivago in Italy, and the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature, led to his dismissal from the Soviet Writer's Union. In 1988, his expulsion from the union was cancelled, posthumously, and the novel published in the USSR.
  • FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY (FYO)
    1991, 25 min.
    Caught up in the revolutionary fervor that swept Europe in 1848, Dostoevsky gave voice to the call for political change. Arrested, he survived a sentence of death only to endure ten years of prison and military servitude, from which came the motif so prominent in his works: the delicate intertwining of good and evil.
  • LEO TOLSTOY (LEO)
    1991, 25 min.
    Born into a life of wealth, Tolstoy's interest in writing flourished during his military service, where he also fell victim to a struggle that would mark the rest of his life: the conflict between the wealth he enjoyed and the poverty of the masses.
  • MAXIM GORKY (MAX)
    1991, 25 min.
    Perhaps foremost amongst his peers in his avowed love for the Russian people, Gorky lived and wrote his belief that society must be motivated by active, courageous people. Arrested in the revolution of 1905, he left Russia vowing not to return until it had achieved a new constitution. As friend and confident to Lenin, he did return, triumphantly.
  • VLADIMIR MAIAKOVSKY (VLA)
    1991, 25 min.
    In 1917, Maiakovsky worked tirelessly as the revolution's premiere sloganeer. However, with the Bolsheviks in power, he devoted himself to journalism, and candid appraisals of the waste and brutality he witnessed.

FRONTLINE: AFTER GORBACHEV'S USSR (FRO)
1992, 60 min.
In this program, Hedrick Smith investigates what has happened to the people and institutions of the USSR since 1989.

FRONTLINE: LOOSE NUKES (FRO1)
1992, 57 mins. Distributed by PBS video.
This program examines the new nuclear threat that has arisen in the post-Cold War era. Even though the fear of nuclear annihilation has diminished, hundreds of tons of nuclear material have disappeared inside the former Soviet Union to create a new danger. The program explores the perilous state of nuclear security in an area already rife with political upheaval and uncertainty.

FRONTLINE: RETURN OF THE CZAR (FRO2)
2000, 60 min., Distributed by PBS video.
Almost a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia is arguably more free than at any time in history. But while the West has applauded the market reforms of former President Boris Yeltsin, in Russia there has been a collapse. As career KGB officer Vladimir Putin - Yeltsin's anointed successor - is set to ascend to Russia's presidentcy, FRONTLINE takes an indepth look at what Russia has become and why.

FRONTLINE: THE STRUGGLE FOR RUSSIA (FRO3)
1992, 120 min.
FRONTLINE presents an in-depth look at Boris Yeltsin's presidency, exploring Russia's economic and social chaos and examining what went wrong with Yeltsin's "shock therapy" economic reforms. The program looks at the battle between Yeltsin and his political opponents and documents how the resulting power vacuum was skillfully exploited by the ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

FRONTLINE: WAR IN EUROPE (FRO4)
1999, 120 min.
Frontline correspondent Peter Boyer undertakes an in-depth examination of the Balkan War. Senior military leaders including General Wesley Clark narrate the story of political constraints, internal divisions, and strategic miscalculations.

THE FUTURE OF THE SOVIET UNION, SESSION 1, BLOOMINGTON (FUT1) Panel discussion at IU for Indiana politicians - December 1991.

THE FUTURE OF THE SOVIET UNION, SESSION 2, BLOOMINGTON (FUT2) Panel discussion at IU for Indiana politicians - December 1991.

THE FUTURE OF THE SOVIET UNION, SESSION 1, IUPUI (FUT3)
Panel discussion at IU for Indiana politicians - December 1991.

THE FUTURE OF THE SOVIET UNION, SESSION, 2, IUPUI (FUT4)
Panel discussion at IU for Indiana politicians - December 1991.

GENDER MONTAGE: FILMS FROM POST-SOVIET SPACE (GEND) (DVD)
2006

  • Women's Happiness or Men's Dignity (Armenia, 2006, 25 min, Dir. Karine Verdiyan and Nika Shek): This film portrays two Armenian women. One woman is a divorcee who, forced to give up her career as an artist during her marriage, finds freedom, happines, and creative expression in her new life but struggles with social stigma. The other is a widow, who, nostalgic for her late husband, believes that women's happiness lies in the patriarchal male-headed household where women are homemakers. Despite their conflicting opinions both find strength in themselves and their work as they raise families as single mothers.
  • Return (Georgia, 2006, 28 min, Dir. Levan Glonti): Liya's past is troublesome - her mother was killed by her father, and she herself was beaten by him many times - and she spends her adult life trying to cope with these memories.
  • Elechek (Kyrgystan, 2006, 26 min, Dir. Nailya Rakhmadieva): Sairash was contentedly married for more than a quarter century until the day her husband took a second, younger wife. Sairash walked out. Her community and relatives blamed her, divorce laws would not protect her, and any division of property would inflict pain on her beloved children. Though her decision set her on a path of hardship, Sairash found the path to her true self.
  • Kristina and Christ (Lithuania, 2006, 22 min, Dir. Inesa Kurklietyte): Kristina, a graduate from Oxford University, is not ordained to become a priest because she is a woman. As an assistant pastor she could act as a lay person only. However, she has focused on encouraging women and girls in her community to seek equal rights of women and men in the Church and society at large.
  • There Are Women in Russian Villages (Russia, 2006, 28 min, Dir. Pavel Kostomarov and Antoin Kattin): Two women, a mother and daughter, demonstrate that poverty in Russia is increasingly a women's phenomenon. Luba and Alesya live in a typical Russian village: the population consists of male drunkards, with few or no exceptions, and exhausted women. As underpaid and overworked milkmaids, Luba and Alesya have no one but themselves to rely on.
  • New Penelope (Tajikistan, 2006, 26 min, Dir. Georgii Dzalaev): Economic depression and political chaos force Tajik men to become migrant laborers, working in unsafe conditions and with inconsistent pay. Tajik women attempt to keep their families alive, and, in some cases, enter polygamous marriages to feed themselves and their families. Often these women relate to Penelope, the wife of the mythical hero Odysseus, who waits many years for her husband to return. The men working abroad and the women left behind face the same fate: hard work and human rights abuses.
  • Who Will Sing a Lullaby (Ukraine, 2006, 29 min, Dir. Nina Rudik): Masha's father and Katya's grandfather are on paternity leave. They are among the few men from Kiev who dared to use their right to take parental leave. Challenging their traditional role as breadwinners, overcoming social stigma, and encouraging their wives to realize themselves outside of the home, these two men show that personal choice can prevail for them and their wives over traditional gender roles.

GENGHIS BLUES (GEN1) (DVD)
1999, 80 min.
A wonderful musical odyssey is captured in this Oscar-nominated documentary. A short-wave radio broadcast from Moscow introduced San Francisco-based blues musician Paul Pena to the art of "throat-singing." This unusual vocal style developed in the small country of Tuva, located between Mongolia and Siberia. For Pena, who is blind, the discovery led to a new musical obsession. The film follows him as he travels to Tuva to participate in the country's major throat-singing competition, his visit creating a cultural exchange that otherwise might never have happened. Pena's battles with depression and the struggles of the Tuvan people are also detailed in this marvelous portrait of international harmony. Audience Award-winner, Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Roko and Adrian Belic.

GLASNOST & ECOLOGY (GLA)
51 min.
In this documentary a team of German scientists joins a team of Soviet environmentalists to assess three major sites of environmental devastation--Leningrad, Lake Baikal, and Chernobyl. From the EARTHSCOPE Series, winner of the 1991 ACE Award for "Best Educational Series."

THE GLASNOST FILM FESTIVAL (GLA1-12)
This is a selection of 22 Soviet documentary films produced or released in the Soviet Union in the first years of the glasnost era, 1986-88. The Festival was brought to the United States in 1989 by the Citizen Exchange Council and the American-Soviet Film Initiative (Moscow). The documentaries were chosen to represent a variety of Soviet film styles and studios as well as a diverse range of current Soviet concerns.

  • VIDEO 1: Against the Current (GLA1)
    27 min. This is a film about ecological crime and how the residents of Kirishi educate themselves to the meaning of citizenship. They are called extremists and "greenies," but they continue to organize protests of a major synthetic protein plant.
    The Wood Goblin: Confessions of an Old Man
    19min. For 15 years he has lived alone in the woods with a cat and two dogs. He commanded a tank company during World War II, was a local Communist party chief, and was fired after a smear campaign. He then "joined the party of the green world" which he now defends against resourceful poachers and woodcutters.
  • VIDEO 2: The Temple (GLA2)
    59 min. A strikingly beautiful film about the 1000th anniversary of Christianity and the role of religion in Soviet society, both past and present.
  • VIDEO 3: The Tailor (GLA3)
    50 min. This is a sobering look at the spiritual void and disillusionment of the current generation of middle-aged adults. They entered life with faith in their talent, in their destiny, and in love. By the dawn of the Brezhnev years they were aged before their time, having lost their preferred work and the opportunity for creative self-realization.
    Early On a Sunday
    16 min. On a winter morning several old village women go to the forest to gather wood. They chop down some pine trees, build a fire, banter about life, and finally go home. Their observations evoke feelings of compassion, bursts of laughter, and respect for the dignity and patience of these women who are unaware of their own worth.
  • VIDEO 4: Chernobyl: Chronicle of Difficult Weeks (GLA4)
    54 min. Vladimir Shevchenko's film crew was the first in the disaster zone following the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. They shot continuously for more than three months. A lifeless city. Empty villages. A dead forest. Various agencies blocked its wider release. Filmgoers in the Soviet Union saw it only after the director's death.
    The BAM Zone: Permanent Residents
    19 min. The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) railroad in Siberia is called the longest monument to the stagnation of the Brezhnev years. Behind the marches, songs, and delegations, equipment was breaking down, lives were broken, and souls were calloused. "The track lies there and is of no use."
  • VIDEO 5: Scenes at a Fountain (GLA5)
    28 min. The ironic title refers to powerful, rumbling column of fire -- the world's largest natural gas fire that burned over one year on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The film dramatically documents the courageous firemen who risked their lives to cap the howling 600 feet high blaze.
    The Limit
    15 min. "This is a shout of horror about how the terrible catastrophe of drinking condemns a human being," said one Soviet critic. Families are divided, homes are neglected, and kids are hungry.
  • VIDEO 6: And the Past Seems But a Dream (GLA6)
    67 min. In 1937 a group of children wrote an idealistic book called We Are From Igarka. The filmmaker planned to film their touching reunion 50 years later. But another childhood was revealed quite different from the book. It's a film about the collapse of faith, first faith in God, then Stalin. It's about the slavish need for an idol and the complicated attitudes of people to Stalinism.
    Theater Square
    26 min. On 1 June 1988 a hunger strike was staged in Erevan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, populated mainly by Armenians but part of the neighboring republic of Azerbaijan. The film portrays this event without any commentary or interviews.
  • VIDEO 7: Black Square (GLA7)
    57 min. This tells the story of Russia's artistic avant-garde from the 1950s to the 1970s when artists were confronted by semi-official, ideological art. It is a cinematic appreciation of works only recently allowed to be exhibited and a story about artists, many of whom were forced to leave their own country.
    Dialogues
    29 min. A bacchanal of rock-jazz and a carnival of punk music erupt in an abandoned Leningrad palace. Collective singing, dancing, and playing make this group of people a community and an ensemble, not just a crowd.
  • VIDEO 8: This is How We Live (GLA8)
    30 min. A shocking look at the alienation and moral depravity of young people. The ugliest of them are homegrown fascists who wear swastikas on their sleeves. They happily introduce us to their program for reconstructing society through sterilization and selection.
    Homecoming
    17 min. Veterans of the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan returned home from the battlefield with unresolved feelings about a demoralizing and unpopular war. A veteran comments in this film, "All the ones who have come back, you can see it from the look on their faces. They have anguish in their eyes. The war hurts your body, and even more your soul."
  • VIDEO 9: Marshal Blucher: A Portrait Against the Background of an Epic (GLA9)
    70 min. The film tries to unlock the riddle of the dramatic 1930s in the Soviet Union, studying the fate of the entire country through the biography of one hero. Marshal Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher was one of the best Red Army commanders, yet, in 1938 he was declared an "enemy of the people" and perished in Stalin's torture chambers. Rare archival footage illustrates the excesses of the Stalin era.
  • VIDEO 10: The Trial -- II (GLA10)
    55 min. This dramatically chronicles the awakening of contemporary civil identity. The word "trial" here has two meanings: the Stalinist trials of the of the 1930s and 1940s and a court of conscience, putting the epoch of the Stalin personality cult on trial. The "Testament" of Bolshevik theoretician Nikolai Bukharin, who was executed by Stalin, is revealed for the first time by his wife.
    Adonis XIV
    9 min. Its horns ornamented with little bells, a "Judas" goat serenely leads a herd of sheep, cows, and horses to the slaughterhouse. Censors discovered the resemblance between reality and this documentary parable, and the film was shelved for 9 years. A director stated, "Everyone who sees this short story should look around and ask himself, 'Why did I survive?'"
  • VIDEO 11: Final Verdict (GLA11)
    66 min. A handsome student shoots a woman and her guest. The director and killer try to understand the motive behind this tragedy. During twenty painful months alone on death row, the killer discovers he is no longer the person he once was. The film argues that the death sentence doesn't remove the guilt of the killer but puts it on us.
    The Evening Sacrifice
    18 min. The director tried to capture the spirit of a crowd. "He placed the camera in the right place and turned it on at the right moment." His colleagues praise him as an underground artist.
  • VIDEO 12: Are you Going to the Ball? (GLA12)
    29 min. What is the price young athletes pay for their fleeting celebrity? This film takes a look at one of the Soviet Union's most sacred institutions: its world famous women's gymnastic team. Featured are Olympic champions Olga Korbut and Lyudmila Turischeva.
    Tomorrow is a holiday
    19 min. With indifferent and mechanical movements, women workers stuff chickens into metal containers. The workers' dorms are not homes but rather utilitarian lodgings. The women, enraged by their abnormal living conditions, "keep singing songs to avoid crying or swearing."

GREAT DECISIONS TELEVISION SERIES, VOL. I (GRE)
1995, Each program is 30 min.
Russia and Its Neighbors: US Policy Choices is program #3 of 4. With William Hyland, Professor, Georgetown University and Ambassador Thomas W. Simons, Jr., Coordinator of US Assistance to the New Independent States. Also included on this cassette are The United Nations at Fifty: Reaching Out or Overreaching?; Nuclear Proliferation: Can it be Capped?; and Middle East: Lasting Steps to Peace.

GREAT DECISIONS 1993 (GRE1)
30 mins. each., Includes program on the United Nations.

GROWING OLD IN RUSSIA (GRO)
2001, 50 min., in Russian with English subtitles.
A look at the lives of senior citizens in the Lake Baikal region of Russia, where the brutal winters tie the community close together and make sharing memories a major pastime. World War II veterans still bring out their uniforms and wear them with pride, rugged living and chores still occupy a land with limited government assistance, and vodka is in heavy use by these hardy souls.

THE HERMITAGE: A RUSSIAN ODYSSEY (HER1-3)
1994, 3 videos.

  • Video 1: Catherine the Great: A Lust for Art (HER1) 54 min., English. With stunning art and dramatic readings from Catherine the Great's diaries, this intriguing program investigates a self-professed "glutton for beauty," who feasted daily on Rembrandts, Rubenses, and Brueghels.
  • Video 2: Tyrants and Heroes: The Nineteenth Century Czars (HER2) 53 min., English. Marked by dramatic contrasts, this fascinating program depicts both the wrenching violence of the 19th century and the resplendent art of Russian royalty collected during the turbulent era. Rod MacLeish puts remarkable paintings, statues, and end-of-the-century photographs in their historical contexts.
  • Video 3: From Czars to Commissars: A Museum Survives (HER3) 55 min., English. In this moving final program, vintage film illustrating the horrors of revolution and war plays counterpoint to breathtaking works by Matisse, Renoir, and Picasso.

HERMITAGE MASTERPIECES (HERM1-6)
1992. (Six-volume set; each 80-minute video has three parts) One of the world's greatest museums, the Hermitage, in St. Petersburg, Russia, is the home of countless masterpieces from every school of Western art, represented by Rembrandt, Raphael, da Vinci, Rubens, van Dyck, El Greco, Goya and Renoir. The museum houses Europe's largest collection of Picasso's Cubist paintings and large galleries of Matisse and Gauguin. In addition, displays of sculpture, decorative arts and the architecture of the building are on view in over 400 rooms. In this series of 18 programs, a vast selection of rarely seen treasures, fascinating narratives about the art, the artists and their times and fine classical music combine to illuminate the stunning visual images, making each program a unique and memorable experience.

  • Volume 1 (HERM1): The Museum's Majestic Architecture; Highlights of the Masterpieces; Russia in the Age of Peter the Great.
  • Volume 2 (HERM2): Decorating Arts of Italy, France and England; Art from Mesopotamia to Ancient China; the Art of Ancient Egypt.
  • Volume 3 (HERM3): The Vast Sculpture Collection; The Classical World of Greece and Rome; Art of the Middle Ages.
  • Volume 4 (HERM4): Art of the Early Renaissance; Raphael, da Vinci and the High Renaissance; Art of the Netherlands: 15th and 16th Centuries.
  • Volume 5 (HERM5): Rubens, van Dyck and the 17th Century Flemish Painters; Rembrandt and the 17th Century Dutch Painters; Velazquez, El Greco, Goya and the Spanish Masters.
  • Volume 6 (HERM6): French Classical Style of the 17th and 18th Centuries; The Road to Impressionism: 19th Century France; Modernism: Matisse, Picasso and More 20th Century Painters.

HIDDEN MEMORY (HIDM)
1995, 56 min.
Eighty years ago, Soviet authorities began a systematic effort to destroy Russian religious and cultural traditions in order to secure loyalty to the state. Today, a handful of folklorists are in a race against time to uncover and preserve true Russian culture. Traveling though the countryside, often at their own expense, students and scholars are visiting elderly villagers, recording their songs, dances and stories and collecting traditional costumes. Russia: Hidden Memory takes viewers on a journey through remote areas seldom visited by outsiders. As a dedicated Russian folklorist, Galina Sysoeva teams with American folklorist, Deirdre Paulsen, to search out the few survivors who remember the "pure" rituals and celebrations that were performed for centuries and capture them for future generations.

HISTORY'S TURNING POINTS: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (HTR)
After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917, two boyhood friends fought for control of the vast Russian empire. By October, after months of civil unrest, Vladimir Lenin overthrew his arch rival Alexander Kerensky and created a one-party dictatorship of the proletariat. A 70 year experiment with communism began that would embrace every aspect of Russian life.

HOMAGE TO CHAGALL (HOM)
1977, Canadian, 90 min., in English.
A study of the life and works of the great Russian artist, superbly filmed in color, and with narration by James Mason. Included is rare footage of Chagall and Madame Chagall.

THE HUNT FOR THE TRUE OCTOBER: THE REAL RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (HUN4)
1999, 26 min.
In this program, Cambridge University's Orlando Figes and St. Petersburg Herzen University's Vitaly Startsev investigate the circumstances of the October Revolution, exploding the popular myths reinforced by Sergei Eisenstein's film October. The film also explores the "what-ifs" that could have led to democracy in Russia instead of dictatorship.

IF THE PEOPLE WILL LEAD (IF)
1992, 58 min.
A lively exploration of the evolution of freedom in the former Soviet Union, and especially of the critical role played by the media. Leading Soviet print and television journalists describe their first steps to freedom and their later battles against renewed censorship prior to and during the 1991 coup.

IMMORTAL FORTRESS (IMMO)
1999, 52 min. In English and Russian (with English subtitles).
Bloodied and demoralized, Russian units withdrew from Chechnya in September 1996 a year and a half after it bludgeoned its way into the Chechen capital of Grozny. But the war is far from over. In fact, Chechnya's continuing conflict with Russia is a story that spans centuries.
Award winning Immortal Fortress and its producer/director Dodge Billingsley take the viewer on a dangerous behind-the-scenes journey into Chechnya, exploring the tiny mountain republic's war driven culture while searching for its most popular modern day warrior, Shamil Basayev.
After centuries of blood feuds, battle traditions, and resistance to all foreign occupiers, the warrior cult defines Chechen society. Every Chechen man is first a warrior, then a farmer, baker or oil worker. Shamil Basayev personifies this warrior spirit. To Russia and the West he is considered a terrorist, but in Chechnyava hero. His battlefield exploits have become legendary. The surprise attack on the Russian city Budyonnovsk in 1995 and the invasion of western Dagestan in 1999 have brought him international attention.
Immortal Fortress is a riveting look behind the scenes of one of the work's most controversial men, and answers the broader question of why Shamil Basayev and thousands of other Chechens fight.

IN THE NAME OF LOVE: MODERN DAY MAIL ORDER BRIDES (NMAI)
2002, 58 min. By Shannon O'Rourke.
What's motivating the thousands of Russian women who sign up with agencies to meet and marry American men? From the gray skies of St. Petersburg to sunny California ranches, documentary film In the Name of Love explores the financial pros and cons of exporting one's heart. The film grapples with the tremendous economic challenges and difficult decisions facing Russian women today. The film is told from the point of view of five Russian women, four of them single mothers, who struggle for dignity as they endure male chauvinism, poverty and culture shock all while searching for love.

INSIDE THE GLOBAL ECONOMY: ECONOMIES IN TRANSITION (INS)
1994, 60 min. Produced by Annenberg/CPB, this video is a part of their series examining the global economy, offering a balanced view of how the world's economic picture has developed and what the futrue might hold. Economies in Transition examines the transformation of the former Communist countries into free-market economies.

INSIDE GORBACHEV'S USSR SERIES (INS1-4)
1990, 4 videotapes, 58 min. each.

  • Part I: The Taste of Democracy (INS1)
    From emotion-charged sessions at the Congress to defiant meetings of neighborhood councils, ordinary citizens are confronting powerful institutions in ways novel to Soviet society.
  • Part II: Comfortable Lies, Bitter Truths (INS2)
    Gorbachev fights a powerful bureaucracy as he tries to replace party slogans with fresh thinking. Teachers and media, enjoying a new freedom of the press, expose historical lies in an effort to stimulate independent thought; hard-liners resist change.
  • Part III: Looking for Perestroika (INS3)
    Plans for economic reform are stymied by fear of taking risks or losing power. Visits a coal mine, a state farm, a private enterprise, and the economic ministry in the Kremlin. How restructuring has affected the standard of living and new private business.
  • Part IV: Coming Apart (INS4)
    A resurgence of religious movements, ethnic rivalries, and demands for independence are bringing the USSR to the verge of implosion. Focuses on Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Lithuania.

INSIDE THE SOVIET UNION (INS5-13)
This rich series is being made available through a special arrangement with the Society for Cultural Relations, US/USSR. Made during the years that the Iron Curtain was most impenetrable, these films provide a real and rare opportunity to explore the mindset of the Soviet people at a time when speech, thought, and lifestyles were systematized and controlled. These are propaganda films in a pure and tragic sense; they promote and inspire belief in a system that ultimately could not work.

  • LENIN AND THE BOLSHEVIKS (INS5)
    60 min.
    Two profiles of the revolutionary leader and hero of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
  • SOVIET WAR STORIES FROM WW II (INS6)
    115 min.
    Four short programs that explore mixed memories of WW II, from a variety of Soviet perspectives.
  • OUR SOVIET ALLIES/WW II (INS7)
    50 min.
    Four historical programs combine authentic WW II footage with recollections of misty-eyed veterans to document the great Soviet victories of WW II.
  • NAZI WAR CRIMES: BABI-YAR (INS8)
    50 min.
    Babi-Yar was occupied by the Nazis in 1941 and used for extermination. Graphic film and testimonies of escaped victims are incorporated.
  • OPIATES OF THE MASSES--RELIGION IN THE USSR (INS9)
    105 min.
    The battle between church and state was never more profound in the Soviet block.
  • FUN IN THE USSR (INS10)
    95 min.
    A collection of five short, whimsical and bizarre films of how the Soviets spend their weekends and vacations.
  • THEATER OF THE IRON CURTAIN (INS11)
    55 min.
    Film provides a behind-the-scenes look at legitimate theater in the Soviet Union.
  • SOVIET BEDTIME STORIES: FILMS FOR CHILDREN. (INS12)
    60 min.
    Some of the best Soviet films for children are represented in this collection.
  • THE PARTY LINE ON SOVIET JEWRY (INS13)
    1990, 50 min.
    This controversial documentary is intended to explain the Soviet position on Soviet Jews to the outside world. This state-oriented propaganda has biographies on successful Soviet Jews, including a doctor, an engineer and a group of uncensored Jewish poets and writers. The Soviet government warns of the temptation to flee to Israel, but insists that Russia is the "true" homeland.

INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS (INT)
1994, 50 min., Russian with English subtitles.
Twentieth-century Russia is the less than willing subject of this close psychoanalytic interpretation, inspired by Freud's book of the same name. Archival and newsreel footage, together with commentary employing the psychoanalytic method, offer great insights which clarify such cataclysmic events and the rise of Stalin and the Cold War.

INTERVIEWS FROM RUSSIA (INT2) (DVD)
2002, 90 min.
Russians speak about new poverty, new problems, and new opportunities. Some are successful businessmen and businesswomen, others feel they're victims of the new Russia. A film by Slawomir Grunberg, Slava Paperno and Viktoria Tsimberov, distributed by Lexicon Bridge Publishers and designed to aid in the teaching of Russian language. In Russian, no subtitles.

AN INTRODUCTION TO RUSSIAN LITERATURE (INT1)
1975, 56 min.
This video examines Russian history from the early nineteenth century to the present through the eyes of some of its major writers, including Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pasternak, Blok, Akhmatova, and Solzhenitsyn.

IS IT EASY TO BE YOUNG? (IS)
1987, 90 min., Latvian with English subtitles.
This controversial Soviet documentary by filmmaker Yuri Podniek captures members of the punk rock subculture cavorting at a concert, being dragged into court for smashing up a train, and telling the camera about the tender hopes and the drab realities of their lives as hospital orderlies, morticians, and drug-addicted, disillusioned Afghanistan veterans.

ISLAMIC RESURGENCE AND HOLY WAR: THE FORMER SOVIET UNION AND INDONESIA (ISL) (DVD)
2003, 52 min., In English.
Over the last decade, Islam has swiftly grown in popularity so much so that today one in every five people on Earth is a follower of Mohammed. But with this resurgence has come an increase in friction between Muslims and non-Muslims. Segment one of this program focuses on four divinity school students from Tatarstan who dropped out to join the jihad in Chechnya, while segment two tracks the efforts of President Abdurrahman Wahid to make peace between rioting Muslims and Christians on the Indonesian island of Ambon.

ISLAM, ASIA, AND MODERNITY (ISLI1, ISLI2, ISLI3, ISLI4, ISLI5,ISLI6)(DVD)
2005. In English.
A three-day conference to explore the changing politics, practices, and representations of Islam in Asia; how these changes are studied, documented, taught, and represented in the academy and the media; and how these practices affect politics society, and culture in Muslims Asia.

  • Islam, Asia and Modernity 1(ISLI1) Islam, Asia and Modernity.
  • Islam, Asia and Modernity 2 (ISLI2) Gender, Sexuality, and the Body in Asian Muslim Societies.
  • Islam, Asia and Modernity 3 (ISLI3) Islamic Arts and National Culture.
  • Islam, Asia and Modernity 4 (ISLI4) The Crisis of Masculine Identities in Post Soviet & Post 9-11.
  • Islam, Asia and Modernity 5 (ISLI5) Education and Islamic Legal Subjects in Asia
  • Islam, Asia and Modernity 6 (ISLI6) Closing Comments: Asian Islam and the Politics of Knowledge

IVAN THE TERRIBLE (IVA6) (DVD)
1999, 50 min.
His name conjures images of senseless brutality, yet in Russia, Ivan the Terrible is considered by many a national hero, even a man of God. Filmed entirely on location, this documentary presents a thorough biography of Russia’s despot of contradictions. Also highlighted is how Stalin admired Ivan and saw in him a role model and useful symbol of the state. The program offers readings of Ivan’s diary and letters, interviews with leading scholars, and extensive footage from Sergei Eisenstein’s classic film—personally commissioned by Stalin—about Russia’s first Czar. The Oprichniki, the dreaded brotherhood sworn to protecting Ivan, are seen as a precursor to Stalin’s secret police. A BBC Production.

IVAN THE TERRIBLE: A&E'S BIOGRAPHY (IVA5)
1998, 50 min.
A&E's Biography explores this fascinating, vital-if violent-ruler who shaped the destiny of a nation. Best remembered for his ruthless and wanton brutality, this first Russian tsar dragged his nation out of the Dark Ages, expanded borders and founded a regime that lasted until the February Revolution of 1917-more than three centuries later.

I WAS STALIN'S BODYGUARD (IWAS)
1990, 73 min., English subtitles. Directed by Semeon Aranovitch.
Having found the last surviving personal bodyguard of Josef Stalin, who had begun working for the leader in the 1930's, Aranovitch weaves together unprecedented, first-hand testimony with rare film footage, including Stalin's home movies.

THE KING AND THE FOOL (KING1)
1990. Directed by Yossi Turisky.
The Yiddish Theater in Moscow blossomed during the cultural renaissance that followed the Russian Revolution. Two of the moving forces behind the theater were Solomon Mikhoels and Benjamin Zuskin, two multi-talented artists. Affectionately called "the king and the fool," roles they played in their Yiddish language performance of King Lear, these two worked together to help forge one of the great theater troupes of all time. Following World War II, when Stalin took aim at one creative Jewish talent after another, each was targeted for execution. The actors' dramatic story is forcefully told by those who knew them best. The video includes excerpts from films and plays, including Yidishe Glikn (Jewish Luck) and King Lear, in which each performed.

LAST OF THE CZARS (LAS)
1996, 150 min.,
This documentary explores the life and times of Czar Nicholas II and his family. "Last of the Czars" includes rare, never-before-seen film footage, actual letters, czarist-era survivor interviews, photos and other rare items. The video provides viewers with a finely-detailed look at Russia's most dramatic era.

LAST OF THE CZARS: DEATH OF THE DYNASTY (LASD)
2002, 47 min.
Decades of social unrest coupled with the privations of Word War I brought Russia to revolution; yielding to the people’s will, Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne. This finely crafted program presents the final years of the Romanovs, from the outbreak of revolt and the return of Lenin to their brutal execution, the culmination of the Bolshevik leader’s lifelong plan of revenge. The program uses an incredible array of rare film footage, diaries, letters, and interviews with survivors of the era, to include Prince Nicholas Romanov, the present head of the family. DNA evidence is also examined, proving finally the identities of the Romanov remains. A Discovery Channel Production.

LAST OF THE CZARS: NICKY AND ALIX (LASN)
2002, 47 min.
What this intimate portrait makes apparent is that Czar Nicholas II and his wife remained lovers and devoted parents; shy, kindly, and dangerously naïve, they retreated from the empire’s realities to the safety of a close-knit family. The program looks at the courtship and early years of "Nicky and Alix"—Nicholas, heir to the Russian throne, and Alexandra, granddaughter of England’s Queen Victoria. This period sees the birth of their four daughters and son, Alexei. Rare films of the era include footage of Nicholas II’s coronation over 100 years ago. Interviews, photos, and letters from the Romanov Archive in Moscow enhance the narrative. A Discovery Channel Production.

LAST OF THE CZARS: THE SHADOW OF RASPUTIN (LASS)
2002, 47 min.
After four daughters, Czar Nicholas II and Alexandra finally had a son, the long-awaited heir to the Russian throne; what they kept secret was that Alexei was born with hemophilia. As this program shows, the royal couple’s desperation to save their son led them to put their total trust, politically as well as medically, in reputed mystic Gregory Rasputin. With World War I raging and Alexandra thought to be a German spy by the Russian people, the Czar’s reputation was further damaged by the rumors surrounding Rasputin. Firsthand accounts, diary entries, rare footage, and some of the Czar’s own photographs bring to life this strange chapter in the Romanov saga. A Discovery Channel Production

L'CHAYIM, COMRADE STALIN! (LCH)
2001, 90 min, Russian & English w/ English subtitles. Directed by Yale Strom.
This video traces the history of Birobidzhan, the capital of the Soviet Union's Jewish Autonomous Region, from 1928 to the present. Heeding the slogan "To a Jewish land,"·Jews from the U.S.S.R. as well as Canada, the U.S., Poland, France and Argentina, among other countries, made the arduous trek, by boat and train, to Siberia. The region, rife with disease and deprivation, was a crushing disappointment to these first pioneers. In subsequent years, despite encouragement from organizations such as AMBIJAN and IKOR, Jewish immigration steadily declined.

In March 2000, American filmmaker Yale Strom flew to Moscow to begin a seven-day trip, via the Trans-Siberian Railroad, to Birobidzhan. Accompanying him was interpreter-bodyguard (and former KGB agent) Slava Andreovich, grandson of Mikhail Kalenin, first president of the U.S.S.R. and architect of the Jewish Autonomous Region. Fascinating footage from Russian archives and scenes from the Soviet propaganda film, Seekers of Happiness, are woven into the journey. In Birobidzhan, his interviews with early Jewish pioneers of the J.A.R. and young proponents of the revival of Yiddish culture, paint a vivid portrait of contemporary Jewish life in Russia--a compelling tale of the perseverance of Jews and their Yiddish culture in the face of forced migration, anti-Semitism, and great privations--as well as the circumstances surrounding this unique chapter in Soviet, and world, history.

LENIN AND HIS LEGACY (LEN)
1993, 30 min.
This program traces the life and legacy of Lenin. Using documentary footage dating back to 1896, the program shows pre-revolutionary Russia, the Revolution, and the events after Lenin's death: the treason trials of the 30s, the war, the death of Stalin and many of his successors, Gorbachev's call for reforms, the shifts in domestic and foreign policy.

HEROES & TYRANTS OF THE 20th CENTURY:  LENIN (LEI) (VHS)
2001, 40 min, English..
Heroes and Tyrants vividly recreates the path to glory of this inspiring leader who led the Bolshevik Revolution to become the founder of the Russian Communist Party and the first head of the Soviet state. The compelling close-up reveals a ravaged and chaotic Russia and the fiery speeches of a man who led his nation to become the dominant power it is today. Heroes and Tyrants leaves you with a Lenin you have never seen before.

LEO TOLSTOY (LEO1)
1984, 103 min., English subtitles.
This film traces the turbulent life of Leo Tolstoy, one of the greatest writers of the nineteenth century, from childhood through his stormy marriage and up to his death.

GREAT RUSSIAN WRITERS: LEO TOLSTOY (DVD) (LEO2)
2007, 30 min, English
This biography presents a revealing look into the events, people, and places that influenced the creation of the author’s major works, and tells the story of the impact that Russia had on the history of western literature.  Filmed on location in Russia.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOSEF STALIN (LIF)
1993, 58 min.
This is the documentary story of the man who subverted the Russian Revolution. Suppressing Lenin's dying wish that Stalin be replaced, he became Lenin's heir. The program follows the struggles and betrayals of the 20's, the atrocities of the 30's, the carnage of the war, the sleight of hand by which Stalin imposed his conditions on Roosevelt and Churchill, and the end of this demented man.

LIFE ON THE ATOMIC RIVER (LIF3) (DVD)
(2002, 60 min.) Contains 200 interviews with Russian doctors, teachers, farmers, and children who live in the most irradiated spot on Earth. A film by Slawomir Grunberg and Slava Paperno, distributed by Lexicon Bridge Publishers and designed to aid in the teaching of Russian language. In Russian, no subtitles

LIFTING THE YOKE: UKRAINE (LIF1)
1994, 50 min.
This program examines the effects of establishing an independent Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Emotional and divisive issues accompanying this endeavor include: the legacy of Stalin, conflicts and competing interests between the Church and the nationalists, and the question of to what degree the language should be imposed.

THE LIGHT THAT FAILED; MACNEIL LEHRER NEWSHOUR (LIG)
1992, 85 min.
George Kenan, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Conquest and other experts discuss how and why communism failed in the Soviet Union. In a series of interviews, they examine the past role of communism, the events and ideas that lead to its collapse, and the current economical and political climates in the Soviet Union; in particular, war-torn Yugoslavia.

THE LOSS OF AN ENEMY (LOS)
1992, 28 min.
This program looks back at the origins of the Cold War and what its end means to our country. Extensive use of archival footage illustrates the major milestones of the era. Includes commentary by Hedrick Smith, Strobe Talbott, and Alexei Arbatov. Aired on public television.

THE MAGIC OF THE BOLSHOI BALLET (MAG)
1987, 60 min.
This rare collection of the most historic performances by the leading dancers of the famed Bolshoi Ballet Company features highlights from favorite ballets as they were performed from the 1930's to the present.

MAN AND MUSIC SERIES (MAN2, MAN3, MAN4)

  • RUSSIA UNDER THE TSARS: THE SEARCH FOR A VOICE (MAN2)
    1989, 53 min.
    The Russian-ness of Russian music derives from the folk song and the music of the Orthodox Church: the characteristic modes, the sounds of bells, the unison a cappella voices of the Russian liturgy-sources not mined until Glinka laid down the foundations of a Russian school of music, almost single-handedly. The program traces the cultural history of Russia from the 17th century, covering the cultural role the tsars, the building of St. Petersburg, the enthusiasm for France cut short by the Napoleonic invasion, the role of Pushkin and, above all, of Glinka. This program includes sections of Glinka's A Life for the Tsar, Kamarinskaya, Cherubimskaya; and the so-called Rostov Action.
  • RUSSIA UNDER THE TSARS: MUSIC FOR A NATION (MAN 3)
    1989, 53 min.
    "The Search for a Voice" covered the origins of Russian music and proceeded through the work of Glinka; this program begins in 1881, the year in which Tsar Alexander II was assassinated and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto premiered. The program covers the introduction of the Mighty Fistful, and focuses on the life and works of Tchaikovsky. Includes sections of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, First String Quartet, Eugene Onegin, Swan Lake, the Symphonie Pathetique; Balakirev's "Islamei"; Borodin's "In Central Asia", Second String Quartet; and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.
  • RUSSIA UNDER THE TSARS: MUSIC FOR THE WORLD (MAN4)
    1989, 53 min.
    The musical era that began at the turn of the 20th century was filled with turbulent change: virtuoso performers like Scriabin and Heifetz emerged from the conservatories, and one world-class composer followed another. In many ways, the Composer’s Corner of Leningrad’s Lavra Cemetery sums up the story of Russian music, but Rachmaninov and Stravinsky lived abroad, showing that Russian music had entered the Western world on its own terms. Stravinsky and Schoenberg turned out to be the giants of their time, pushing music towards further and further limits. Musical contents include sections of Rachmaninov: Second Piano Concerto; Scriabin: "Poème de l’extase"; Stravinsky: "Petrushka"; Prokofiev: First Piano Concerto.

MARINA TSVETAYEVA (MAR1)
1994, 56 min.
This docudrama includes archival footage of the times and places that provided the backdrop of Tsvetayeva's life. It also presents readings in Russian and English of her poems, diaries and letters as well as dramatized scenes and interviews with key writers, biographers, and translations of her work.

MASTERPIECES OF THE HERMITAGE (MAS1 and MAS2)
Series of 30 minute programs.

  • The Museum's Majestic Architecture (MAS1)
    A walk-through tour of the Hermitage museum, paying attention to the architecture of the palaces and to the history of the Emperors living in them.
  • Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (MAS2)
    A view of seventeenth century St. Petersburg, as it looked before Peter began the process of transformation from swampland into an urban center dominated by European architecture.

MAXIM GORKY (1868-1936) (MAX1)
1998, 30 min.
Maxim Gorky, novelist, playright and essayist, was the founder of Socialist Realism. Although known principally as a writer, he was also a prominent figure in the Russian Revolution. The life of Gorky is brought to life in this informative documentary.

MICHAEL AND SVETLANA (MIC4)
2002, 90 min.
He knew no Russian, and she knew no English. They met through a newspaper ad and decided to get married. A film by Slawomir Grunberg and Slava Paperno, distributed by Lexicon Bridge Publishers and designed to aid in the teaching of Russian language. In Russian, no subtitles.

THE MIGHTY FISTFUL (MIG)
1990, 60 min.
Until the 19th century, fashionable Russian audiences preferred Western music. Then came Glinka, Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Scriabin, Tchaikovsky. The program covers the distance from folk tradition to the founding of the Russian style of music by Glinka. Performers include James Galway, Sosipov's Balalaika Orchestra, and the Kirov, Bolshoi and Royal Ballets. Included are excerpts from Glinka's Russlan and Ludmilla Overture; Tcheshnikov's Let Us Give Prayer; Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Coronation Scene; Borodin's Quartet No. 2 in D Major; Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee, A Bride to the Czar; Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, Swan Lake, Symphony No. 6 (Pathetique); Scriabin's Prometheus; Stravinsky's The Firebird.

MODERN RUSSIAN CULTURE (MOD1 and MOD2 and MODR) (DVD)
2004.
An audio-visual, multi-disciplinary course of lectures on modern Russian culture with high quality photographic images, CD-quality music and narration, and hypertext-linked notes. Each lecture offers 25 to 30 images with informational captions and a note which is intended to be both specific (what the work of art or architecture is) and elaborative (what the work's significance or historical-cultural context are). All texts are in English, with Russian equivalents provided for the names of monuments and buildings, titles of paintings, and names of the artists and architects. From Lexicon Bridge Publishers.

  • Moscow (MOD1) (DVD)
  • Petersburg (MOD2) (DVD)
  • Reference Disc (MODR) (DVD)
  • Russia in Art (MOD4) (DVD)
  • Russian in Transition (MOD5) (DVD)

MODEST MUSSORGSKY (MOD)
1993, 78 min.
This program, filmed entirely on location in Russia on the 150th anniversary of his birth, aims to discover the true Mussorgsky and reveal the radicalism of the man and his music. Music in the program is performed by some of Russia's greatest talents: the conductor Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and the Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra, the pianists Nicolai Petrov and Viktoria Postnikova, the soloists and chorus of the Bolshoi Theatre and Tallin State Opera, Estonia.

MONSTER: A PORTRAIT OF STALIN IN BLOOD (MON 1-6)
1992.
This six tape series, produced by Alexandre Ivankin at Contact Studio, Moscow, uses never before released films from the Russian archives and personal interviews to tell the true story of the annihilation of approximately 40 million Russians by Stalin.

  • Episode 1: Stalin and Mind Control (MON1) 46 min. Stalin anticipates Germany's Joseph Goebbels in his marshalling of Soviet media to manipulate the minds of his population. All organs of communication are taken under Stalin's control, including painting, sculpture, poetry, theater, cinema and architecture--even opera and ballet.
  • Episode 2: Stalin's Secret Police (MON2) 46 min. Stalin's rise to power is attributed largely to his control of the vast secret police complex, known first as the Cheka and eventually as the KGB. At Stalin's direction the secret police becomes the bludgeon with which Stalin enforces his political and personal will, liquidating party rivals, purging the Red Army, and creating in his "gulags" the largest slave labor force since the Pharaohs.
  • Episode 3: Stalin and the War (MON3) 46 min. Prior to the start of WWII, Stalin signs a nonaggression pact with Hitler, hoping to buy time and build up his armed forces. His plan backfires when Hitler launches surprise attack "Barbarossa" against the Soviet Union, and his panzers sweep to within 10 kilometers of Moscow. When Stalin issues disastrous orders, the Soviet people, with enormous effort and sacrifice, beat back the German Wehrmacht, and in spite of Stalin's blundering win a great victory.
  • Episode 4: The Private Life of Joseph Stalin (MON4) 46 min. Stalin is born of doubtful parenthood and grows up a Marxist and a revolutionary, organizing riots and robbing banks to fund party activities. While Stalin is twice-married, both wives die suspicious deaths, the first of "typhoid" after being kicked in the stomach while pregnant, and the second of "appendicitis" after committing suicide. Stalin then systematically murders or imprisons his many inlaws. Witnesses of these events furnish the horrid details.
  • Episode 5: Stalin's Enslavement of Rural Russia (MON5) 46 min. Russia's 40 million farmers resist Stalin's attempt to seize their lands and to collectivize Soviet farming. The result is a virtual war that lasts for years and results in the deaths of 20 million farmers and their families through execution, deliberate starvation and death in the labor camps.
  • Episode 6: Stalin...The Last Empire (MON6) 46 min. Stalin is largely responsible for subverting the idealism of the Bolshevik Revolution, which preached a peoples' democracy to a power-hungry system of elitism which ignores the peoples' needs and rewards only the party aristocracy. "Stalinism" does not die with him in 1953 but remains a political legacy that is finally toppled by a determined Soviet people in August 1991.

MOSCOW AND LENINGRAD: THE CROWN JEWELS OF RUSSIA (MOS2)
1990, 50 min.
The history and culture of Russia are revealed in this program as viewers tour the Kremlin and Lenin's tomb, watch the pageantry of Red Square, see St. Basil's Cathedral, and enjoy the Bolshoi Theater and the Moscow Circus. Then, in Leningrad, viewers visit the Winter Palace, the Alexander Column, and the extravagant Palace of Petrodvorets.

THE NEW RUSSIA (NEW 1-5)

20 min each.
This series brings to life the scale and diversity of Russia, using spectacular views from space and three dimensional graphics.

  • Volume 1: The Moscow Region (NEW1) This program examines the role of Moscow, the largest population center in Russia, as the center of urban and economic development in the new Russia. In addition to looking at Moscow's role as the seat of government, the program visits several local businesses.
  • Volume 2: The Kuzbass. (NEW2) The Kuzbass, a region deep in the frozen region Siberia, is the heart of Russia's heavy industry. This program examines the town of Novokuznets, its old Stalinist center of town, its high rise suburbs and its local residents.
  • Volume 3: The Volga River (NEW3) This program examines many of the characteristics of the Volga River, from the reservoirs formed by a series of huge hydroelectric dams to the concentration of heavy industry on the river and the resulting pollution. The impact of industrial contaminants on the local population, economy and ecology is also examined.
  • Volume 4: The Steppes of North Caucasus (NEW4) This program joins a small group of farmers for the wheat harvest on the vast plains of the Russian Steppes. The video explores the impact of farming methods and on the way of life for Russian farmers, as the giant collective farms of the Soviet era have given way to farmers who now own their own land.
  • Volume 5: Norilsk: Life in the Arctic (NEW5) This program explores the extraordinary city of Norilsk, located above the Arctic Circle and is the home of more than 200,000 people. The video examines how the exploitation of the regions rich mineral wealth by open cast mining and other destructive methods have affected the delicate ecology. The lives of the nomadic native people are also discussed.

NAMEDNI 1961-2003 (NAM 1-6)
Leonid Parfenov hosts NTV's encyclopedic view of recent Russian history from Khrushchev through the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of an soft authoritarian state. As Parfenov says at the beginning of each episode, it's the story of "events, people, and styles that defined our way of life – things that we find impossible to forget but even harder to understand." Originally meant to cover the last forty years of Soviet power, the popular TV series eventually expanded into the twenty-first century. In each hour-long episode, Parfenov hits the major happenings of the year in question, from politics, culture, and sports to Russia's sub rosa lifestyles.

THE NEW RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (NEW6)
1991, 47 min.
Made by CNN, this video document focuses on the failed 1991 hardline coup in the Soviet Union that temporarily imprisoned President Mikhail Gorbachev and thrust Boris Yeltsin into the world spotlight.

THE OCTOBER 1917 REVOLUTION & AFTER (OCT1)
1993, 26 min.
This documentary traces the defeat of Russian forces in WWI, the overthrow of Nicholas and the Czarist family, and the rise to power of the Communists. Drawn from Russian and Western newsreel footage and from Soviet propaganda films that dramatized some events of the Revolution, this video also shows the effects of the Revolution in Western Europe.

THE ORANGE CHRONICLES (ORC) (DVD)
2007, 98 min., English, Ukrainian, Russian with English subtitles. Directed by Damian Kolodiy.
From Kyiv to Odessa and Lviv, the filmmaker engaged with Ukrainians on all sides of the debate to compile this personal account of the three months spent in the midst of the Orange Revolution.  The documentary explores the people’s motivations to mobilize, and the emotional conflicts among a bitterly divided populace. The film is a tribute to the human spirit, whose yearning for freedom, the pursuit of happiness, and spiritual fulfillment will not be denied. In the process of documenting the revolution, Kolodiy rediscovers his own modern Ukrainian identity and comes to understand the personal imperatives behind one nation’s fight for justice.

ORANGE REVOLUTION (ORR) (DVD)
2007, 106 min., English. Directed by Steve York.
One candidate in Ukraine’s 2004 Presidential elections is backed by the post-Soviet regime. Eight weeks before the election, the opposition candidate is mysteriously poisoned. He survives, but with a severely disfigured face. In the final voting, blatant vote fraud hands the election to the regime. Fed up with censored media, corruption, and rule by wealthy oligarchs, they have voted for change, and now they are taking over Kyiv to enforce their will. Through snow and freezing temperatures they stand their ground, blockading government buildings, demanding a new election. Through the eyes and in the voices of the Ukrainian people, Orange Revolution tells the story of a people united, not by one leader or party, but by one idea: to defend their vote and the future of the their country.



OUT OF THE PRESENT (OUT) (DVD)
1996, 95 min., in Russian with English subtitles, directed by Andrei Ujica.
Man's place in the universe has never been contemplated quite the way it is in this singular documentary. Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev's ten months on board the Mir space station are captured in footage shot during his record-breaking visit to the heavens, which is contrasted with images of the collapse of the Soviet Union from 1991 to 1992. While Krikalev was away from Earth, the empire that sent him to space ceased to exist, his hometown of Leningrad became St. Petersburg, and the nature of global affairs underwent massive change. "Yet, the extraterrestrial shots and scenes have the effect of somehow dwarfing and distancing these historic events, however momentous. Galaxies, like grains of sand, spread across the sky, and even the epochal sights of the collapse of the Soviet state shrivel in comparison" (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune).


PATH TO AGREEMENT: RUSSIA AND UKRAINE (PAT)

1992, 38 min., English and Russian versions.
A co-production of Ostankino and Common Ground Productions, this program begins with background on the Russian Ukrainian conflict including an interview with Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk. The program then shows a "search for common ground" between Alexandr Lavrinovich, Vice President of the Ukrainian nationalist party Rukh, and Sergei Baburin, leader of the Russian parliamentary faction Rossiya. The video presents an easily accessible picture of the ethnic conflict of the former USSR.

PEOPLE'S CENTURY: PART 1 (PEO)
1998, 55 min.
Episode 3: 1917 Red Flag. As Communism is put into practice, the Russian people live through the greatest social experiment the world has ever seen. Communist Party members and activists from the era are interviewed, including Ana Bukharina, the late widow of Nikolai Bukharin.

PEOPLE'S GALA CONCERT (GAL)
1991, 143 min., Russian with English subtitles.
A landmark documentary; Semeon Aranovitch explores the roots of Russian anti-Semitism during Stalin's final years, set around the murder of the brilliant actor Solomon Mikhoels and the case of a group of Russian doctors charged with attempting to poison Stalin. Aranovitch draws on rare archival footage and interviews with survivors and their descendants to relate this untold history.

THE PERSONAL FILE OF ANNA AKHMATOVA (PER)
1989, 65 min., Russian with English subtitles. Semeon Aranovitch.
A moving portrait of the extraordinary Soviet poet, Anna Akhmatova. Although her work was banned and went unpublished for 17 years, her poem "Requiem" became the underground anthem for the millions who suffered under Stalin. This unique film, which uses Akhmatova's diaries for text, also includes portraits of Akhmatova's friends and contemporaries--Boris Pasternak, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Mikhail Sostchenko.

POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: PROMISES DEFERRED (POS)
1997, 55 min.
This program examines how the Russian city of Gorky has adapted to a free-enterprise system. We see public reaction to the auction of government property, and the opening of private markets. Class divisions became apparent in interviews with the Russian nouveau riche, the Mafia, and average citizens. Ordinary people, tired of waiting for economic benefits promised through privatization, support Communist political candidates who promise renewed state control and a return to traditional Russian values. The city is shown as being torn apart by violent tensions and antagonisms that exist between the advocates of reform and Neo-Communists.

POWER OF PLACE: WORLD REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY: RUSSIA'S FRACTURING FEDERATION (POW7-8)

  • Facing Ethnic and Environmental Diversity (POW7) 1996, 30 min.
    Case studies include the question of independence in the ethnically mixed Republic of Dagestan in the face of the current devolutionary process and the uncertainties of a harsh climate and poor infrastructure in the Russian countryside around Volgoda.
  • Central and Remote Economic Development (POW8) 1996, 30 min.
    Case studies include the effects of the shift to a market economy on real estate values in St. Petersburg and the difficulties of industrial production in Bratsk, Siberia.
  • Geography for the 21st Century (POW-NEW) 2003.
    Case studies include the "Northwest Contrast" and "Holding the Hinterlands".

PUTIN: A BITTER DECISION (PUT2) (DVD)
49min, in English.
In the mind of Vladimir Putin, 9/11/01 marked the day that triggered a chain of events that ended with Russia's acceptance into the ranks of the West-but at a terrible cost to national pride and the balance of nuclear power. This program narrates the circumstances leading to President Putin's bitter decision to trade U.S. approval of the war in Chechnya for what has proved to be a diminished role in world politics. Footage of Putin, George W. Bush, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, Security Council Secretary Vladimir Rushailo, and Djuma Namagani, military commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, is featured, along with gripping images of New York's Ground Zero and Central Asian Islamist extremists in action.

PUTIN: STAIRWAY TO POWER (PUT1) (DVD)
49min, in English.
This program tracks the career of Vladimir Putin from KGB spymaster for the USSR to president of the Russian Federation. Footage of landmark events-the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election and re-election of Boris Yeltsin, the war against Chechnya, terrorist attacks on Moscow-are featured, as well as archival interviews with former Stasi official Horst Jemlich, former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, oligarchs Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, al Qaeda-trained Chechen army commander Omar ibn al-Khattab, the IMF's Michel Camdessus, former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, and Putin himself.

RUSSIA: REBUILDING A NATION (R-REB)
2002 , 25 min.
Using an investigative approach to physical and social geography, this program follows North American students to Russia to look at the nation's efforts to rebuild following the collapse of the USSR. It examines the impacts of Western civilization from market restructuring to intellectual openness.

RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE: A ROMANCE WITH THE REVOLUTION (RAV)
1999, 55 min.
This program documents the achievements of the Russian avant-garde movement and the impact of the Russian Revolution, which at first nurtured modern art as an emblem of communist culture and then banned it in favor of socialist realism. Set within the context of the life of the pivotal art critic Nikolai Punin, the key events of the Lenin/Stalin years and the contributions of major artists such as Malevich, Tatlin, and Filonov are described. Plentiful examples of paintings and sculptures plus period newsreel footage add a strong visual appeal to the story of a compelling period of both art and world history.

RED DAWN, (RED8)
20 min.
Red Dawn focuses on the period beginning with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas in February, 1917 and ending with the Bolshevik seizure of power in October, 1917. "Red Dawn" outlines the ineffective policies of Nicholas, the events of the February Revolution, the rise of Bolshevism based upon united leadership and utopian promises, as well as the reality of destitution, starvation, and homelessness.

RED EMPIRE (RED1-7)
1990, 54 min. each. Series presented by Dr. Robert Conquest.

  • Volume 1: Revolutionaries (RED1) Nicholas and Alexandra rule a massive empire, one sixth the world's land mass, 150 million people of 100 different nationalities. Life is hard and the workers discontent. Moisei Muravnik, now 99 years old, recalls the Siberian goldfields strike of 1912 that ignites the workers' movement.
  • Volume 2: Winners and Losers (RED2) War with Germany leads to civil war in Russia. Among the first casualties are the Tsar and his family. As the Reds and the Whites fight for control of the empire, those who suffer most are the people, victims of battle and famine. The Communist Party, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, gains control.
  • Volume 3: Class Warriors (RED3) Communism continues to draw the attention and praise of people throughout the world. One reason is the rhetoric of Joseph Stalin, who calls for a world order based on the rights and contributions of all workers. But, in fact, Stalin is a brutal and ruthless dictator, and when the peasants do not accept his plan for collective farms, he viciously starves them by the millions.
  • Volume 4: Enemies of the People (RED4). Why does a child denounce his parents, demanding their execution? When Stalin's five year plans fail to turn the Soviet Union into a super power, he blames secret traitors and urges the people to find them. Today they still comb the forests for hidden grave where millions of innocent people were executed. Ultimately, Stalin does create the Red Empire, but the cost in terms of human live is almost incomprehensible.
  • Volume 5: Patriots (RED5) Confusion reigns in the Soviet Union over whom the people should support in World War II. But Hitler forces their decision when he invades in 1941. The Soviets are no match for the Nazis, who destroy everything on their way to Moscow. But in the end, the harsh Russian winter defeats the Germans, who are soon pushed back, leaving the infamous Joseph Stalin a hero and the unlikely ally of America and Britain.
  • Volume 6: Survivors (RED6) Victory in World War II is replaced with the Cold War, as the Communists reject all Western influences as decadence. Truth is redefined as the radio and airplane are said to be invented by Russians, not Westerners. But the Soviets do make great advances, including the first space flight. When Stalin dies, the future of the Red Empire is again uncertain until Nikita Khrushchev takes control.
  • Volume 7: Prisoners of the Past (RED7) Lenin's ideal of individual rights has still not materialized and the people are restless. Freedom lives in their hearts even as Khrushchev's successor, Leonid Brezhnev, crushes rebellion and invades Czechoslovakia. The old guard fails; Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko all die within a three year period. That sets the stage for Mikhail Gorbachev, a youthful vigorous leader who promises hope and change.

RED FILES (REDF)
1999, 240 min.
Exposes the Soviet view of recent history through interviews with key Soviet participants, never-before-seen archival film and declassified dossiers. These compelling stories of personal and political intrigue were hidden behind the Iron Curtain for generations. Two-tape set.

  • PART 1: SECRET VICTORIES OF THE KGB To the West, they were traitors. To the Soviet Union, they were heroes. This program tells a twisted tale of intrigue and ideological obsession -- in which men and women betrayed the West to spy for the KGB.
  • PART 2: SOVIET SPORTS WARS This program presents the bittersweet stories of four premiere Soviet athletes: Igor ter Ovanesyan (long jump), Olga Korbut and Larisa Latynina (gymnastics), and Anatoly Firsov (hockey).
  • PART 3: SECRET SOVIET MOON MISSION This episode presents the story of the mastermind responsible for the entire Soviet space program: Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.
  • PART 4: SOVIET PROPAGANDA MACHINE The program weaves observations - including those of Boris Yefimov, Pravda's political cartoonist from 1922 to 1980, Russian television journalist Vladimir Pozner, former American Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Vietnam veteran Jan Scruggs with archival film to trace the 70-year history of the communist and capitalist propaganda machines.

REFLECTIONS OF TERROR: Life in the Gulag (REF)
1990, 30 min., Ukrainian without subtitles.
Originally entitled Voni stoiat' peredi mnoiu (They Stand in Front of Us), this film was produced and directed by the Ukrainian writer Anatol Kostenko, a former Zek. Kostenko interviews survivors of Soviet labor camps and commemorates those who perished.

REJOICING IN THE DARK (REJ)
1990, 78 min., English subtitles. Directed by Ekaterina Pravdina, Svetlana Rezhushkina, and Alexander Koniashov.
A film about Russian poets...Russian poets and Russia. Marquis de Custine wrote prophetically in the mid-nineteenth century that "when the Sun of openness rose above Russia, it would throw light on such abominations and such awful outrages that the whole world would shudder." There are no outrages in the film. This is just a story of some people who practiced the art of surviving without conforming or betraying their inner "self."

REPORT FROM THE EDGE (REPO)
2000, 50 min., English narration.
This documentary provides an in-depth look at the lingering environmental costs of the former Soviet Union's unchecked industrial growth. The focus is the city of Bratsk, located in Siberia with a population of approximately 270,000 that has been exposed to potentially harmful byproducts of a nuclear power plant, a chemical plant and a metallurgical plant.

REVEALING RUSSIA (REV1-5)
1992, Russian with English narration and subtitles.
Film series by Marina Goldovskaya.

  • Video 1: The Shattered Mirror (REV1) 58 min. Filmmaker's personal journey through ordinary Russian life at a time of great change. Includes meetings with filmmaker's friends and acquaintances, as well as personal scenes of her own wedding and the death of her mother.
  • Video 2: The House With Knights (REV2) 58 min. Built in the early 1900's, this gr