Russia
A collection of films about Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union.
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The Pencil
Directed by Natalya Nazarova • Drama • With Vladimir Mishukov, Nadezhda Gorelova, Kirill Veselov • 2019 • 92 minutes
Antonina, an artist from Saint Petersburg, follows her husband, a political prisoner, to the deep north province of Russia. As she starts teaching art in a local school, she finds...
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Crystal Swan
Directed by Darya Zhuk • Drama • With Alina Nasibullina, Ivan Mulin • 2018 • 93 minutes
Set a few years after Belarus gained independence in 1990, this vibrant debut feature follows the path of young Evelina, who dreams of moving to Chicago in order to pursue her passion for house music. However...
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La Supplication (Voices from Chernobyl)
Directed by Pol Cruchten • Documentary • 2017 • 86 minutes
Based on the novel by Svetlana Alexievich, recipient of a Nobel Prize in Literature, La Supplication (Voices from Chernobyl) does not deal with Chernobyl, but rather with the world of Chernobyl, about which we know very little. Eyewitnes...
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The Son (inside the Russian army)
Directed by Alexander Abaturov • Documentary • 2022 • 70 minutes
In 2013, filmmaker Alexander Abaturov cousin Dima Ilukhin was killed during a Russian Special Forces (Spetsnaz) operation in the Republic of Dagestan. He was 21. The fighter who shot him in the head and was himself subsequently kil...
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The 3 Rooms of Melancholia
Directed by Pirjo Honkasalo • Documentary • 2004 • 104 minutes
An award-winning, stunningly beautiful documentary, THE 3 ROOMS OF MELANCHOLIA looks at how the Russia’s war in Chechnya twenty year ago psychologically affected children both in Chechnya, and in Russia. Divided into three episodes o...
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Glory to the Queen
Directed by Tatia Skhirtladze • Documentary • With Nona Gaprindashvili, Nana Alexandria, Maia Chiburdanidze and Nana Ioseliani • 2020 • 82 minutes
Leading us to Tbilisi, Georgia, Glory to the Queen reveals the interwoven biographies of the world chess heroes Nona Gaprindashvili, Nana Alexandria,...
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Mariam
Directed by Sharipa Urazbayeva • Drama • With Meruert Sabbusinova • 2019 • 75 minutes
After her husband mysteriously disappears, all the hardships of survival in the cold winter period in the far away village in Kazakhstan have to be carried out by Mariam, the mother of four small kids. To save ...
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Beanpole
Directed by Kantemir Balagov • Drama • With Viktoria Miroshnichenko, Vasilisa Perelygina, Andrey Bykov • 2019 • 137 minutes
In post-WWII Leningrad, two women, Iya and Masha (astonishing newcomers Viktoria Miroshnichenko and Vasilisa Perelygina), intensely bonded after fighting side by side as an...
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Dziga And His Brothers
Directed by Evgeny Tsymbal • Documentary • With Denis Kaufman, Mikhail Kaufman, Boris Kaufman • 2002 • 54 minutes
The fascinating and tumultuous lives of Mikhail, Boris and Denis Kaufman (better known as Dziga Vertov) are the focus of this powerful documentary. Using rare archival footage from R...
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The Coal Miner's Day
Directed by Gael Mocaer • Documentary • 2014 • 80 minutes
"That's the fire emergency system. If there's a fire, it bursts and the water falls down," one of the mineworkers explains. He is talking about a few bags of water, all the size of a fist, somewhat haphazardly hung from the low ceiling of...
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Close Relations (Rodnye)
Directed by Vitaly Mansky • Documentary • 2016 • 114 minutes
Following Ukraine’s revolution in 2013, filmmaker Vitaly Mansky decides to travel throughout the region and visit his family. He talks on camera with family members in Ukraine, Crimea and Donetsk, hoping to gain a better understanding ...
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Afghanistan 1979: The War That Changed the World
Directed by Gulya Mirzoeva • Documentary • 2014 • 52 minutes
The Soviet troops' intervention in Afghanistan was a pivotal event in the history of the 20th century. It launched Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in 1979. This was the war that changed the world. Western cou...
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900 Days
Directed by Jessica Gorter • Documentary • 2011 • 77 minutes
Jessica Gorter's 900 DAYS contrasts the devastating and unforgettable stories recounted by survivors of the Siege of Leningrad, the infamous German blockade, which caused the deaths of more than 1 million people during World War II, wi...
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Space Dogs
Directed by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter • Documentary • 2020 • 91 minutes
Laika, a stray dog picked up by the Soviet space program on the streets of Moscow, became the first living being to orbit the earth when she was launched into space on Sputnik 2. Although Laika would not survive the journ...
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Sleeping Souls
Directed by Alexander Abaturov • Documentary • 2013 • 50 minutes
Atchinsk is a Siberian town 2500 miles away from Moscow where Soviet dissidents and, before them, the Tsar's opponents were deported. It's pre-election season, and the small, sleepy town is abuzz with the voices of regime supporter...
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Siberian Love
Directed by Olga Delane • Documentary • 2017 • 82 minutes
In rural Siberia, romantic expectations are traditional and practical. The man is the head of the household. The woman takes care of the housekeeping and the children. But filmmaker Olga Delane doesn’t agree. While she was born in this sm...
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The Scientist, the Imposter and Stalin
Directed by Gulya Mirzoeva • Documentary • 2017 • 55 minutes
This film - based on hitherto unreleased archives - is an account of two extraordinary human destinies, caught up in an implacable political machinery. It is also the story of an incredible scientific controversy which takes on its ful...
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The Road Movie
Directed by Dmitrii Kalashnikov • Documentary • 2018 • 70 minutes
A mosaic of asphalt adventures, landscape photography, and some of the craziest shit you’ve ever seen, Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s THE ROAD MOVIE is a stunning compilation of video footage shot exclusively via the deluge of dashboard ca...
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The Red Soul
Directed by Jessica Gorter • Documentary • 2017 • 90 minutes
The Red Soul lays bare the Russian psyche of today and shows a world full of contradictions. In a country where hardly any family escaped the hunger, fear and violence resulting from Stalin’s reign of terror, no one has ever been convi...
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Putin's Witnesses
Directed by Vitaly Mansky • Documentary • 2018 • 102 minutes
On December 31, 1999, Russian president Boris Yeltsin went on live television just before midnight. He announced he was stepping down, and his chosen successor, Vladimir Putin, would take over as acting president. Putin promised a pres...
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Pripyat
Directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter • Documentary • 1999 • 100 minutes
After the nuclear catastrophe in 1986, a 30 km restricted zone was erected around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and 116,000 persons were evacuated from this area. Pripyat is a portrait of the people who still live and work t...
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Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalghia
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • Drama • With Oleg Yankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano
• 2013 • 125 minutesNostalghia is Andrei Tarkovsky's brooding late masterpiece, a darkly poetic vision of exile. It was the first of his features to be made outside of Russia, the home to which he...
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One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich
Directed by Chris Marker • Documentary • With Andrei Tarkovsky • 2000 • 55 minutes
ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANDREI ARSENEVICH is renowned French filmmaker Chris Marker's homage to his friend and colleague, Andrei Tarkovsky, who died in 1986. Widely regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of the...
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Marius Petipa: The French Master of Russian Ballet
Directed by Denis Sneguirev • Documentary • 2019 • 52 minutes
Marius Petipa was an unlikely artistic revolutionary. A middling dancer, he bounced around European cultural centres until he finally washed up in St. Petersburg in 1847 at age 29 – hired, sight unseen, by the Imperial Ballet as a pri...