Discover Movies

The frank conversation of two sisters about their mother against the background of the older sister's daily life.

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: International Youth Day and demonstrations / All-Russian Olympiad / Streetcar collision / Construction of automobiles in a Petrograd factory.

A film about memory and love. Fisherman Sergey escapes from his humdrum existence on the empty shores of Lake Onega – where he meets with the ghost of his beloved wife.

The bear — a powerful and horrendous wild beast, a symbol of strength and might — now is under threat himself. Danger comes from poachers, who hunt for bear fur and bile, which is believed to heal. Danger comes from illegal hunting centers, enslaving baby animals for dog training. Yet a human becomes stronger not through a struggle or hunt — but… love. And care — for a bear. ‘’Land of Bears’’ is a film about the country, where love between a man and bear is mutual.

In the frigid waters off of Russia’s Bering Strait, Inuit and Chukchi hunters today still seek out the giant sea mammals that have provided their people with food since time immemorial. It is known, that the whale hunting today is controversial and subject to international criticism and regulations. But the Inuit and Chukchi hunt is permitted by international law because of the whaling is the foundation of their culture and their life. The contemporary story of elders Aleksandr and Aleksei blends seamlessly with that of “the woman who gave birth to a whale” and other ancient myths, told here in vivid animation, in this ongoing struggle for survival and preservation of a traditional lifestyle in one of the most remote places on earth.

These are the stories of the three guys,three friends, living in a city in the south of Russia. In the course of a year they recorded their everyday lives with a small HDcam. This record is what comprises the movie and to what it is dedicated. Our heroes are eighteen years old and they live average lives: work, have parties and, fall in love. But finally they will have to make those most important of personal choices which will define their future.

Аlina Makarova is a mother of six of her own children and one adopted child. Her ex husband is from Ethiopia, and all her own children are mixed race. Only her adopted son is white, but he has serious health problems and is psychologically unstable. Alina's older children realise what complications the adoption might bring and are afraid that there won't be enough room, time and love for everyone. But she convinces them that it's the right thing.

A documentary essay on inner freedom, on choosing the path, about responsibility for one's destiny and for the destinies of close people. The heroes of the film are clergymen, who for a canonical reason are temporarily forbidden to serve: priest John Okhlobystin and hierodeacon Prokhor (Lisitsyn). Priests banned from service or resigning voluntarily are referred to as offensive nicknames for "rasstrigi."

The film is about what children and teenagers of besieged Leningrad survived. 14 surviving heroes and dozens of those for whom only lines of diaries and signatures for children's drawings can now speak, word by word, minute by minute, story after story, revive the siege of memory. What did people actually feel in the besieged city? Which of what we know about the blockade is true, and what is a myth, a stamp from a history textbook? The authors of the film with the help of video comparisons, reconstructions return modern St. Petersburg to the terrible time of the blockade, combining history with momentary.

“Like the right and left hand Your soul is close to my soul We are sealed shut, blissfully and warmly, Like the right and left wing…” The life and art of Pavel Kogan and Lyudmila Stanukinas, two famous Leningrad documentary filmmakers, can best be expressed by the Tsvetaeva stanza cited above. They are the main characters of this film, which their student Viktor Kossakovsky shot during Pavel Kogan’s final months. For Lyudmila Stanukinas, Lyalya, as those close to her called her, her husband was her only reason for existence. She was with him until the end and held onto his extinguishing life as much as she could.

His motto was laconic: "I promised - stay still." This is how Alexei Balabanov lived, raised his sons, was friends, and so filmed. A legendary director and an extraordinary person who made both "festival" and "mass" films with equal ease. He was a great father and a difficult husband, a loyal friend and an honest guy. Balabanov with his life, passions, losses, burning pain on the way to God in the memories of those closest to him - mother, sons, wife and friends. He seems to be telling the crew again: "Let's do it talentedly!"

We met Nastya, the main character, in 2003, when she was serving her time in the correctional colony for under-age girls. Obviously, she felt guilty and had a dream about freedom. She believed in a chance of new happy life. Every girl in colony had the same feelings and was sure in those beliefs. Ten years have passed since then. Unfortunately, Nastya’s hopes were shattered. Life outside prison was even more difficult. The young girl has to deal with a huge count of troubles and tragedies by herself. Anyone could break down, but Nastya. She goes on finding inspiration and efforts to pursuit of happiness. Especially trying for the happiness of her small daughter. Nastya is an amazingly strong person. She ought to be happy.

A romantic story of a family of clowns, the birth of their circus numbers, told by the main characters themselves, clowns Dolly and Domino. As in any family, there are problems here. Not all of them develop easily and naturally, as in the circus arena. But great love for each other, for their profession, for the art to which their lives are dedicated, helps them cope with all problems.

The film “Andrey Konchalovsky’s Cinema Odyssey” is a tribute to the creative path of one of our outstanding contemporaries, Andrey Konchalovsky, spanning from his debut film, “The Boy and the Dove”, which was immediately invited to the Venice International Film Festival, to the present day. The documentary features notable figures who starred in the master’s films, from Sergei Shakurov to Tom Holtz, from Inna Churikova to Irina Kupchenko. Dividing his work into ‘periods’ — classical, American, and the perestroika era — Konchalovsky, with the help of the cinema, embarks on a cinematic journey akin to Odysseus, ultimately returning to his own ‘Penelope’: Moscow.

Konstantin Khabensky and Zelfira Tregulova, General Director of the Tretyakov Gallery, will tell the audience about the masterpieces of the Russian avant-garde from the collection of the New Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val.

Valery Bryusov - a poet-symbolist, an unrestrained innovator of poetic form and content, an idol of women, a "demon of thought", a "genius of passion", an "angel of sadness", fanned by scandalous glory. How could it happen that he became the first Soviet censor, participant in the most initial oppression of Russian poets for ideological reasons? How and why did the brightest star of the unique Silver Age of our literature fade and die?

In the stands of stadiums during football matches the serious passions are boiling - so the fans support their teams. It is about them and the film - about what is happening around football, about football fans of one of the leading teams - CSKA. About the special, so-called "Russian style" of our "Tiffozy" tells the hero of the film, a fan with a long record and a nickname Yauza.

The last film in Vidokle's trilogy on Cosmism is a meditation on the museum as the site of resurrection-a central idea for many Cosmist thinkers, scientists and avant-garde artists. Filmed at the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Moscow Zoological Museum, The Lenin Library, and the Museum of Revolution, the film looks at museological and archival techniques of collection, restoration and conservation as a means of the material restoration of life, following an essay penned by Nikolai Federov on this subject in the 1880s. The film follows a cast comprised of present-day followers of Federov, several actors, artists and a Pharaoh Hound that playfully enact a resurrection of a mummy, a close examination of Malevich's Black Square, Rodchenko's spatial constructions, taxidermied animals, artifacts of the Russian Revolution, skeletons, and mannequins in tableau vivant-like scenes, in order to create a contemporary visualization of the poetry implicit in Federov's writings.

On the eve of the World Cup, three teams of young directors embark on a journey through the largest country in the world to find out what really makes up the soul and meaning of real Russian football. In a country where football exists more in the headlines of scandalous tabloids and newly built, shiny stadiums-palaces, in parallel, the invisible life of raw and non-program football, yard boxes and football fields arranged in the most unexpected places is rapidly developing. The blood and energy of this life are young people driven by a pure love of the game, not looking for awards and titles. The stories of 3 heroes who live at a distance of tens of thousands of kilometers from each other, but are passionate about the same thing, are told in a documentary almanac, the shooting of which took place throughout Russia.

Who is he - Leo Tolstoy? The film, based on Tolstoy's diary and his photographs, plunges into Tolstoy's special, borderless dialogue with himself and with the world, which does not end, as he believed, with death. However, it will not be possible to see Tolstoy himself - he is given only in reflections: in photographs and in the perception of other people.

Krasnodar's debut in the Champions League in 2020. Emotional doc film about the brightest season in the history of the club.

Sockeye, a species of wild salmon, is born in Kamchatkan waters and spends its entire life in the Pacific Ocean. Only once does it return to fresh waters — to give offspring, start the circle of life, and die. It is an inexhaustible resource that feeds billions of people on the planet, restored every year. But soon, we may find ourselves facing the unimaginable: humans will exhaust the inexhaustible.

A biographical film about the popular rap artist Detsl, whose real name is Kirill Tolmatskiy. The rap artist passed away at the age of 35 in 2019.

Self-portrait. In 1998 our family came under armed attack. We were able to escape and we fled Grozny. We have been silent about it since.

A large-scale film journey beyond the Arctic Circle, which combines the secrets of shamans and life in the Arctic desert, modern technological process and the struggle of small peoples for their traditions and culture. The film consists of three independent short stories, which are connected by Denis Simachev. He sets off on a journey through the Russian Arctic in search of unique musical tunes.

The soulless atmosphere of a women's penitentiary destroys the prisoners' personality, kills all femininity in them. The film looks at the rationality of the long prison terms for women with children.

The history of Russian animated films.

Love is spontaneous, illogical, and immaterial. Modern science, studying the nature of this phenomenon, has discovered fantastic changes in the brains of people in love - love suppresses the feeling of fear, negative emotions, and criticism. Why does a person in love have an increased pulse and breathing rate? Biologists' research indicates that love is like drug intoxication. Chemists claim that we feel love due to the release of certain hormones into the blood. However, both admit that Love cannot be explained only by science.

A two part documentary about the first five decades of Russian cinema: from its birth to 1953 - the death of Stalin and the first seedlings of the thaw. The film covers the most important milestones of cinema. Its introduction as a lowbrow entertainment, the impact of WWI and revolutions on the film process. The principal masters - Kuleshov, Vertov, Eisenstein - and their discoveries in film language at the turn of the 1920-30s. The arrival of sound. The evacuation of the Soviet film industry during WWII and the heroic work of the wartime documentary crews. Restricted film production and early signs of the thaw in the late 1940s - early 1950s. Film historians and art critics, directors and screenwriters put the history of cinema in a broader context, considering the path that the country took from Tsarist Russia to the totalitarian state under the rule of Stalin.

The Leningrad period of V. Putin's life.

Sergei Govorukhin, son of well known Soviet and Russian film director Stanislav Govorukhin, was a Russian scriptwriter and war correspondent. This is his first and only documentary, dealing with his feelings about the first war he covered - the first Chechen war - as well as his very cynical view of Russian society during this time. These feelings and opinions were shared by many other war correspondents and cameramen at the time. The author used heavily contrasting footage and sound to illustrate his point of the indifference of 90's/early 2000's Russian society towards the conflicts it found itself in after the Second World War.

Anton was born in April 1985. Doesn't know the father. The mother wanted to leave him in the hospital. Anton was raised by a blind grandmother. Now Anton is graduating from the Conservatory and writing music.

This is a large-scale canvass depicting life in the Solovetsky monastery. What does the spiritual life of man signify? what is religious tradition and how does it relate to the modern world? how does faith influence human life? the solovetsky islands are a milestone in the spiritual geography of russia. they are marked by spiritual, historical, cultural events which have a profound bearing on the national memory. located on the outskirts of russia, the archipelago was destined to become one of the powerful symbols of the russian spirit. the movie looks at the deeper meaning of existence, faith, hope and love.

The life story of the legendary music critic, journalist, TV and radio host Artemy Troitsky, who for many years has been recognized as a musical authority not only in Russia, but also beyond its borders.

"Citizen poet. Run of the Year” is not a continuation of the satirical project of the same name, which became wildly popular in Russia in 2011-2012. And not even its result. This film is a memory of the most lively, powerful and interesting year in the political life of the country over the past 20 years. The film is a reflection on the reasons for the rapid awakening of the civic position of millions of people. The film is a message to our near future.

This half-hour film attempts to recreate the play "The Inspector General", one of the most perfect creations of the genius Vsevolod Meyerhold. Vidas Siliunas provides a captivating account of this production, interspersed with fantasies on the theme of Meyerhold's "The Inspector General", created by Valery Fokin and actors from the Oleg Tabakov Theatre, as well as short video clips miraculously preserved from the original 1926 production.

Nina Sazonova's heroines are inseparable from her personal fate as a man who survived the war, experienced a lot of grief and losses, and endured severe life trials. She rightfully holds a special and honorable place in the wonderful galaxy of artists of the Russian Army Theater. Her roles in the plays "Vassa", "Drummers", "Trees die standing" brought her national love. The images she created in cinema, such as Ekaterina, are also unforgettable. ("Women"), Anisya ("There's a Guy like That"), the Ivanovs' mother ("Our House") and Aunt Pasha from the TV series "Day by Day". All these are not just the roles of a talented actress, they are the fates of a whole generation of Russian women, great workers who endured the torments and hardships of war on their shoulders, lost their husbands, but did not break down, selflessly giving others all their kindness and concern.

Every year, a group of Russian seasonal workers returns to bleak Barentsburg on the island of Svalbard to perform dangerous work in the mines.

For several years, Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich traveled around in Russia and Belarus to investigate the relationship to love of the Russian people. One, as Svetlana means, is an acute shortage in today's society.

The 90s were a twilight time for the Moscow industrial: no one understood what would happen next, whether this scene would remain in the underground or occupy its niche in the mainstream. The heroes of Alyona Mikhailova's film are fearless experimenters with an impressive set of instruments, from scrap iron found in a landfill and homemade sound machines to analog synthesizers. They were united by the desire to sound, and to sound loud. The echo of this rumble is in the memories of musicians and eyewitnesses, gathered together for the first time on the screen.

Pablo Picasso, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yasha Heifetz: all of them along with a series of outstanding figures of the 20th Century were captured for the film by a man who was an outstanding person himself. Leonid Kogan was a great violinist. He was perhaps one of the hundred in the USSR who had a chance to experience the taste of freedom. This is a true story about the price of freedom for an artist. When the government suspected his intention to emigrate, they strictly limited his concerts abroad and banned him from leaving the country. A year later the violinist died because freedom was his oxygen.

The world-renowned Marina Abramović has argued that artists should not fall in love with each other. The film VovaNina decisively overturns this categorical statement by showing us the life story of two outstanding Moscow artists, Vladimir Salnikov and Nina Kotel.

The young vlogger Maximka shares revelations about his life, death, women and capitalism before making the decision of sex change. Already as a woman, she shares her thoughts about the transformation and that life as a woman is not what she expected.

War leaves an indelible scary mark on people's lives, but at the same time there is an illusion, and maybe war is beautiful? The honored artist of Ukraine, Alexander Vasyakin, who had passed the blockade of Leningrad and the fronts of the Second World War, who lived a long creative life, talks on this topic. (Two monuments of work by A. Vasyakin were installed in Moscow: a monument to the Defenders of Moscow, and a sculpture of John Paul II).

A film about the famous jazzman Igor Butman. How did a boy from Soviet Leningrad manage to step into the big world of jazz music? And what role did Sergei Kuryokhin, Dave Brubeck, Winton Marsalis and Bill Clinton play in his life? The details of rehearsals and concerts, the secrets of family traditions, the frank stories of the musician's friends create an interesting picture of the being of a person striving for his dream. Multiple world champion Vyacheslav Fetisov, prominent jazzmen David Goloshchekin and Nikolai Levinovsky, singer Sergei Mazayev and many other public figures and art masters take part in the film.

Maybe you've seen or heard these phrases on Instagram, in a coffee shop, at an event, from friends, maybe you even use the app and already provide your grandparents with food baskets every month. Just six months ago, no one knew about "Help" and how easy it really is to help. But thanks to a group of people who have decided that they will talk about helping others in the language of technology and modern media, we are increasingly seeing a circle held by two brackets in different cities of the country. This film contains a brief history of "Help" for those who do not know anything about it, an introduction to the team that is mad in its bravery, as well as the cycle of events that is happening with "Help" now. A trip to Sasha Gudkov's hometown, a trip and a performance of the team at the Avaz festival in Kazan, where they work in a car, on a boat, walking around the city, coming to concerts and talk a lot about "Help".

The toddlers in a Russian playgroup are showing a striking number of adult traits. Here and there, serious romantic relationships are budding, and some tots are determined to marry. One infant may urge her friend to keep his voice low, or else the filmmakers will hear everything they say, but most pre-schoolers are undisturbed and continue their everyday activities. They play with dolls, hang around on the playground and chatter a lot, particularly about who is whose friend and who is whose lover. In this environment, the direct cinema style seems even more natural than it usually is. Two years ago, IDFA screened Victor Kossakovsky’s film Pavel and Lyalya (a Jerusalem Romance), which dealt with the profound and unselfish love of an elderly couple. In contrast, the infatuations of young kids are volatile and playful, because ten minutes later you can be married to someone else.

Filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky invites fans and everyday people across Russia to film short videos of their lives, thoughts, and routines during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Furry is a subculture that unites people interested in anthropomorphic animals in the visual arts, animation, literature, and cinema. Participants strive to embody their chosen animal in creative or literal ways.

The film "All the Vertovs" tells about the Kaufman brothers-David, Mikhail and Boris. All three are world-class filmmakers. Each of them managed to achieve the highest level of proficiency in the profession, each had their own vision of the world and the gift to embody it on the screen in a unique, deeply individual manner.

The true, detailed lives of the girls of the Russian pop duo t.A.T.u. as they break through in their promotional tour in America.

The «Eye of God» is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Pushkin Museum. It shows how progressive and pro-West Russians can be, when it comes to comprehending the essence of beauty. Ivan Tsvetayev, a village priest's son, the founder of the museum, wanted the new generation of "Ivans" to understand that we are Europe, while Antiquity is our mutual cradle.

Gora is a frail middle-aged woman who works as a janitor in one of the sleeping areas of Rostov-on-Don. She has neither a residence permit nor a medical policy, and in order to somehow save money, she lives with a friend in a barracks for 500 rubles. The two-storey densely populated hut survived only because it stood in the landfill for its entire history. People have been living here for more than forty years. They grow geese and goats in summer kitchens, boil themselves, drink, love, die. A nunnery is located a hundred meters from the barracks. There are 15 girls of all ages in it, in essence, this is the same barrack, only completely whitewashed and surrounded by a brick fence. They say the abbess is a former prison guard. Passion is no worse than in the cool Mexican series.

Film about the singing and dancing culture of the Ingush people

Ivory harvesting under the extreme conditions of the Russian Far North is slowly but surely turning into a sort of a «mammoth rush». However, as the demand grows, so does social tension in the area.

Oscar is the story of the life of the famous artist Oscar Rabin against the background of three decades of Soviet history; it is a story about a successful experience of standing up against a regime with the help of paint and brushes. It is the story of non-violent resistance against evil, of the boundaries of compromise, about how people try to maintain their inner freedom when they are living in a country that is not very free. The film uses many unique newsreels and other archival materials being shown for the first time. Along with Oscar Rabin, featured in the fim are Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Vladimir Sorokin, Evgeny Kisin, Boris Akunin, Maya Turovskaya, Vladimir Paperny, Erik Bulatov, Oleg Tselkov, Vitaly Komar, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Mihail Chemiakin, Igor Guberman, Donald Rayfield, and Adam Michnik.

A drunk couple spend their summer-holiday at sea. Their life is not everything they hoped for, and abuse is part of their relationship. At sea they dream about love and understanding, and we observe their fellow countrymen spending their holidays on the same beach. Tragedy, comedy, love, hate, sex : it is all there.

This documentary investigates the financial fraud of persons close to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Yuri Chaika.

Olga is believed to be a mentally disabled, orphan girl who is following reindeer herder along the hiking trails in Russia. But she is a very smart teenager and an excellent storyteller.