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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Directed by Tania Rakhmanova • Documentary • 2010 • 52 minutes

A popular trend among Russian oligarchs is to purchase works of art. Why? It's a way to get into the Kremlin's good graces, to gild their image...and to cover up the origin of their fortunes, often acquired in the shadow of post-Sovi...

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...

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...

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 th...

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...

Directed by Alexander Kuznetsov • Documentary • 2016 • 80 minutes

In Sibera, Russia, 18-year-old girls Julia, Ina, Olga and Katia are transferred directly from orphanages to neuropsychiatric institutions and are deprived of their rights as citizens: no freedom, no work, and no family. On the bas...

Directed by Chris Marker • Documentary • 1998 • 116 minutes

Based on the life and work of the Russian film director Alexander Medvedkin (1900-1989), THE LAST BOLSHEVIK is a tribute from one filmmaker to another. An archeological expedition into film history that reveals new cinematic treasures, ...

Directed by Amei Wallach • Documentary • With Ilya Kabakov, Emilia Kabakov, Igoris Markovas, Andrei Monastrysky, Oleg Vassiliev • 2013 • 103 minutes

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here portrays two of Russia’s most celebrated international artists, now American citizens, as they come to terms wi...

Directed by Peter Miller • Documentary • 2000 • 30 minutes

THE INTERNATIONALE draws on people's stories of an emotionally charged radical song (the long-time anthem of socialism and communism) to celebrate the relationship between music and social change, and to evaluate the uncertain fate of on...

Directed by Tania Rakhmanova • Documentary • 2005 • 52 minutes

In August 1999, Vladimir V. Putin, head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), successor to the KGB, was appointed Prime Minister. On December 31st of that year, Boris Yeltsin announced that Putin would succeed him as President ...

Directed by Aliona van der Horst • Documentary • 2003 • 73 minutes

THE HERMITAGE DWELLERS is as much about the people who work in Russia's renowned museum as it is about the glorious art works housed in this St. Petersburg institution. We meet with several 'Hermitage-niks'-including Olga Bogdano...

Directed by Werner Herzog & Dmitry Vasyukov • Documentary • With Werner Herzog • 2013 • 90 minutes

Werner Herzog takes viewers on yet another unforgettable journey into remote and extreme natural landscapes. The acclaimed filmmaker presents this visually stunning documentary about the people liv...

Directed by Vitaly Mansky • Documentary • 2021 • 100 minutes

GORBACHEV. HEAVEN finds acclaimed director Vitaly Mansky (UNDER THE SUN) at home with a man who helped to shape the 20th-century: Mikhail Gorbachev. 

The Soviet leader was acclaimed as the architect of Glasnost and Perestroika, polici...

Directed by Kiur Aarma, Hardi Volmer • Documentary • 2014 • 72 minutes

The Gold Spinners is a story about the birth, glory, and disappearance of a peculiar, invisible, and mighty business empire – the film studio Eesti Reklaamfilm, the only company producing commercials in the Soviet Union.

Directed by David Redmon & Ashley Sabin • Documentary • With Ashley Arbaugh, Olivia Arben, Rachel Blais, Tigran Khachatrain, Nadya Vall • 2012 • 77 minutes

Girl Model explores how young girls are discovered in obscure corners of the globe and initiated into the high stakes modeling industry. Thi...

Directed by Chantal Akerman • Documentary • 2003 • 110 minutes

FROM THE EAST retraces a journey from the end of summer to deepest winter, from East Germany, across Poland and the Baltics, to Moscow. It is a voyage Chantal Akerman wanted to make shortly after the collapse of the Soviet bloc "befo...

Directed by Ināra Kolmane • Documentary • 2017 • 52 minutes

The October Revolution ushered in an era of sexual freedom and liberation from bourgeois conventions. Satisfying sexual needs had to be "as simple as drinking a glass of water," according to feminist Alexandra Kollontai who was at the f...

Directed by Jaak Kilmi • Documentary • 2009 • 80 minutes

Winner of the Best Documentary prize at the Warsaw International Film Festival, this witty, charming, and provocative film recounts how in the mid 1980's, the nation of Estonia still lay firmly in the grip of the Soviet Union, and the repr...