Discoveries from Russia World Cinema

An agent of Uzbekistan’s Foreign Intelligence Service with the codename “Baron,” who has spent five years undercover working for one of the most influential drug lords, Bassam, wants to finally leave the service and return to his family. However, without him, it’s impossible to prevent a series of planned terrorist attacks in Central Asia. Now Baron must infiltrate the militants’ ranks and complete his mission before his identity is exposed.

That's just the way this world works: as children, we encounter death for the first time, when our grandparents pass away. Memories of them remain, memories that grow brighter, clearer, and more life-saving with each passing year. Their cozy, unhurried stories, warm kitchens, and truly special friendships. Sometimes I mentally consult them when I have to make choices. What would Grandma say? "Don't sweat the small stuff. Everything can be fixed, except death..." But what if that, too, can be fixed? It sounds like a fairy tale, but Grandma always had a story for every topic. What if I created a world in which I didn't let her leave me?

Late one night — two days behind schedule — the enigmatic Dmitry Zorin arrives at the climbers' base camp, immediately rubbing everyone the wrong way. No one knows who he is or what brings him there, yet as part of a ten-person amateur group, he is set to ascend the mountain peak under the supervision of three guides. The seasoned guides know that the weather is taking a turn for the worse and the expedition ought to be called off, but the desire for financial gain proves stronger. On the treacherous path to the 5,200-meter summit, blizzards, avalanches, wild animals, extreme cold, and internal conflicts await them. Yet danger is not the greatest obstacle facing Zorin and the others; for the closer they draw to the summit, the more starkly evident it becomes: one cannot escape oneself—the time has come to face one's fears and past mistakes head-on.

Documentary filmmaker Tatiana is working on a film about former European boxing champion Vadim Larin. As a director, she wants him to return to the ring, which would make her film more optimistic. Larin himself, touched by Tatiana's attention and in love with her, is ready to respond to this wish. However, a victorious return to the ring did not work out...

Valentine's day can fulfill our dreams, and then the perfect woman will appear in front of a man in the form of an unexpected trio of Housewives, sex bombs and a business lady, and a modest Secretary will forever win the heart of the notorious don Juan. All the characters of the film suddenly find themselves in a modern fairy tale and get a unique chance to see the world in a new way — through the eyes of lovers…

Young programmer Kirill dreams of presenting his startup to influential businessman Oleg Potapov. But instead of a business meeting, he finds himself caught up in a dangerous and comical chase. Potapov and Katya are running away from their pursuers, and suddenly he mistakes Kirill for his old friend Siziy. Under a hail of bullets, Potapov literally drags Kirill into the car himself, and they drive away from their pursuers together...

A middle-class businessman is killed at his workplace in his office. The suspect - his business partner - Latunin was the last visitor and, according to the pretty witness of Vera's secretary, they had some kind of financial conflict with the murdered man. While the suspect is at large, the life of the only witness is in danger. And management instructs Igor to look after Vera, who turns out to be a sweet, charming, sexy woman. Igor's family relationships are going through a difficult period of divorce from his wife, so Igor rushes headlong into an unexpected bright and passionate "service" romance...

The film is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vsevolod Mikhailovich Bobrov, a Soviet football player, hockey player and outstanding coach. Bobrov was an Olympic champion, honored master of sports and coach, as well as the only captain of the national team in history who competed at both the summer and Winter Olympic Games.

Kolya Semenov grew up in a village, in a fishing village near the river. He likes a girl who wants to become an actress. Once Kolya steals a gazelle to impress the girl. Ahead of him are several years of roads and hills.

If you’ve ever wondered whether reindeer antlers bleed if you saw them off, this film will leave you with no doubt. In the remote Altai Mountains of Russia, on the border with China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, reindeer herders make a living from the trade in “velvet antlers.” South Korean customers in particular swear by the extract made from the antlers, which is supposed to have medicinal properties, including to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The entire process of “harvesting” the antlers is documented in unadorned and grisly detail, interspersed with commentary from the herders and panoramic footage of the green and rugged mountain landscape. During cigarette breaks, the herders bemoan their lack of prospects and the deplorable state of Russian politics and the economy, describing their own position as akin to slavery. Meanwhile, it seems to be the visiting Korean dealers who are raking in the profit.

A talented neurosurgeon, who lost his family in a plane crash, receives a worrying diagnosis. The time of the life-saving procedure coincides with an emergency operation, and the hero has a choice to make: rescue a patient or save his own life...

It was filmed in rural Russia, near the city of Smolensk. It shows a small village, where all young people are gone and only older people are left.

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.

16-year-old Fedya, who has been studying at an Orthodox boarding school since first grade, moves to his mother in St. Petersburg and goes to study at a regular lyceum. There he meets Pasha and Tanya, who open up a world full of unknown emotions, actions and places to him. Fedya falls in love with Tanya and cannot resist any of her desires. He is completely delighted with his new life and the possibility of teenage boundary violations until he learns that Tanya is in love with Pasha and they are planning to run away from their parents to Moscow. He is overcome with anger and envy, but a series of actions corresponding to the description in Christian theological books of the seven deadly sins make Fedor understand that it is the values ​​instilled in the Orthodox boarding school that will save him.

A divorced Professor of gynaecology leads a quiet life preferring his work and his own company to other people. However, his solitude comes to an abrupt end when a neighbour knocks on his door one day asking for help. A young girl in his office is pregnant. Alone and confused, Anna feels that an abortion is her only option, but her doctor has advised her that, if she goes ahead with the operation, it is unlikely she will be able to have children. The Professor reluctantly agrees to examine her, but when he confirms his colleague's diagnosis, Anna is distraught.

A drug smuggler is betrayed by his partner and is then forced to seek help from Russian mobsters.

The simplest Russian woman unexpectedly gets in the way of a violent criminal. She must at all costs give them the required (and for her just incredible) amount of money, otherwise her daughter is in danger. How to find a way out? Tormented by this question, she makes a difficult decision.

A mysterious puppeteer comes to an ordinary school and in one and the same performance turns the assembly hall into a live fairy tale. The boy, caught between his classmates ridicules and indifference of adults, accidentally finds himself on the stage and goes on a magical journey with dragons, dwarfs and a princess. To return he will have to become a knight and defeat not a monster, but his own fear.

In the middle of the 20th century, people with abnormal development began to be born in the world, who were called indigo. But few know that there are those whose anomalies are hidden, and the indigos themselves call them sleepers. The appearance of indigos began to threaten the established world order, so a hunt for them began in secret. To save themselves, indigos began to recruit sleepers using lists with their names.

Two get into the room, it's unclear how, it's unclear where. They could go out, but the doors suddenly close ...

For the eighth time this season, an actor is killed during a performance of Eugene Onegin at the opera and ballet theater. Captain Pronin's patience runs out, and he personally takes on the investigation of the case.

The play is dedicated to the unsuccessful marriage of Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe.

The protagonist spent a significant part of his life burdened by painful memories of his grandfather, who died during Stalin's repressions. And now the time has come when he could avenge his grandfather. This is one storyline, presented in the form of a flashback. The second unfolds in our time, which the author also sees as nothing good.

After the 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 there, and of those who have moved back. What is life like for these people, a life with the invisible and incomprehensible danger of radioactivity? How do they deal with the aftereffects of an accident which is claimed to be statistically improbable? Four protagonists tell their stories and provide a look at everyday life in “their“ zone.

The film is about the screenwriter Yuri Arabov and his first experience as a director: the filming of the film "Gjirokastra" in Albania, which tells about state terror and Soviet-Albanian friendship. For the first time, Arabov performs in an unfamiliar role, as if he himself is playing the role (of the director), building relationships with the actors and the film crew, while giving himself grades. According to Arabov himself, the shooting of the picture turned out to be an unexpected way for him, launching implicit cause-and-effect relationships in his fate.

The story of the boy Sana, a pupil of a boarding school in the Far North. His father drowned in the White Sea, and one day the child's intransigence and thirst for justice lead the child to a small island. Sanya will have to face the local "hermit" and even the police, but, most importantly, the teenager will challenge the very elements.

A Russian stop-motion adaptation of The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish.

A short story about love and how a man literally from scratch can bring the brain to his beloved woman ... Anna Melikyan's short film for Action!

The libretto is by Mussorgsky himself and takes the eponymous “romantic tragedy” by the celebrated Russian poet Alexander Pushkin as its starting point. Boris Godunov is Mussorgsky’s masterpiece and his only complete opera. It’s a vast sprawling tapestry of Russian life, which centres on the Russian people – represented in the opera by a large and powerful chorus – rather than on the title figure. The staging was produced at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and is based on the original version of the score.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's dazzling opera by-line in seven tableaux. The epic journey of Sadko a sea-faring minstrel from Novgorod, his wife Libava and their encounters with Volkhova, a sea Princess and the court of her parents the Tsar and Tsarina of the Sea. Sadko traveling on his ship "Falcon" also meets visiting foreign merchants from India (a Hindu), Scandinavia (a Varangian) and Italy (a Venetian) singing of the magic of their own lands to try and lure him. In the seventh tableaux Sadko is reunited with his wife, thinking his journey a dream, until he sees his fleet of ships coming up the newly created river Volkhova and realizes his sea Princess has transformed herself into the river in order to create the gateway to the ocean for Novgorod. In conclusion Sadko leads the hymn of praise and everyone rejoices their good fortune.

A Russian family lives in an Abkhazian town, which was destroyed by the war. They grow hazelnuts for sale and hope to get rich thanks to the sudden "nut fever", the soaring prices of Abkhazian nuts. But a gang appears in the village stealing nuts.

Eight months after the Chernobyl disaster, a Chernobylite woman that stayed behind to care for her sick mother gives birth to a mutated daughter. She wakes up after giving birth to find her mother gone. Masha, isolated and suffering from cataracts from the radiation exposure, becomes fearful that soldiers will take her contaminated baby. While attempting to reunite with her family in Kiev, the blinding mother and infant become lost in a forest. Masha sees a figure chasing her and believes it's a soldier that wants her child.

ACA 166: Magomedov vs. Dolgov was a mixed martial arts event that took place on Friday, November 24, 2023 the Sibur Arena in St. Petersburg, Russia.

An autobiographical story, set in the city of Grozny in 1994 — its last peaceful year before the outbreak of the First Chechen War, Russia. It follows the life of one family and the tight-knit community of a single courtyard — a place full of warmth, quiet beauty, and the haunting presence of what was to come.

The ANIMATION SHOW OF SHOWS returns for its second year in theaters with 12 charming family-friendly films. The films included are: • Stems - Ainslie Hendersen (Scotland) • Shift - Cecilia Puglesi & Yijun Liu (U.S.) • Pearl - Patrick Osborne (U.S.) • Crin-crin - Iris Alexandre (Belgium) • Mirror - Chris Ware, John Kuramoto, Ira Glass (U.S.) • Last summer in the garden - bekky O’Neil (Canada) • Waiting for the New Year - Vladimir Leschiov (Latvia) • Piper - Alan Barillaro (U.S.) • Bøygen - Kristian Pedersen (Norway) • Afternoon Class - Seoro Oh (Korea) • About a Mother - Dina Velikovskaya (Russia) • Exploozy - Joshua Gunn, Trevor Piecham, & John McGowan (U.S.) • Inner Workings - Leo Matsuda (U.S.) • Corpus - Marc Héricher (France) • Blue - Daniela Sherer (Israel) • Manoman - Simon Cartwright (England) • All Their Shades - Chloé Alliez (Belgium)

A fairy tale about how an evil and greedy pan suffered misadventures and reformed.

The film is a confession about the inhabitants of the island of Fire, near Vologda. The pardoned murderers — one hundred and fifty "suicide bombers" for whom the death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment by Presidential Decree — are asking for execution...

After visiting a doctor young woman finds out there is not much time left.

The first solo stand-up concert of Nurlan Saburov on television. Nurlan will tell about his childhood, how he grew up in a poor family, how he studied at school and lived in a hostel. And also about his family, wife and children.

With the pulsating rhythm of its wheels, the train hurtles into the unknown. A lone passenger unexpectedly encounters a mysterious cat with a suitcase, and strange things begin to happen.

A young girl, Nadezhda, is preparing to become a mother for the first time, but becomes a victim of social discrimination in the maternity hospital because of her HIV status.

For eight years, a team of specialists created a whole world about which almost nothing was known. The world of Kievan Rus of the tenth century. They managed to make historical films with documentary accuracy. Icelandic sagas and the works of Oriental travelers, Byzantine books and, of course, ancient Russian chronicles were studied and researched. The oldest dated chronicle is kept in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg. It was these texts that formed the basis of the script. Five built cities, hand—sewn costumes, forged weapons, a Viking ship — a drakkar — built according to the drawings of that time, complex computer graphics - all in order for the viewer to fully immerse himself in the atmosphere of the early Middle Ages of the Viking film.

Based on the play Miss Julie by August Strindberg.

Seven months of filming brown bear cubs life resulted in a movie that allows to plunge into the beauty of wild nature, and experience a boundary, beyond which a man should not interfere.

A 7-year-old boy named Tema notices ominous metamorphoses in his father: a man working at a chemical plant is gradually becoming a reptile, a transformation that is incompatible with life. The father wants to give his son a future outside the cursed city, but the boy's mother sees his life under the care of the family. After losing her daughter Olya, she is not ready to let her son go.

The post-war guilt and horrific secrets of Nazi Germany serve as a backdrop to a disturbing mind game between a young anatomist and a prostitute in a small hotel room the first Christmas following the war.

1979. Andrey Konchalovsky's film Sibiriada receives a special jury prize at the Cannes film festival. For the Director, this becomes a bridge to another world. Having received permission from the authorities to go abroad for a year, Konchalovsky refuses to return and requires a passport for permanent residence abroad... However, it seems that Konchalovsky himself does not yet understand that from now on his life will be divided into "before" and "after". That now all his subsequent paintings will be compared with the previous ones. And even when he returns to Russia 10 years later, his wanderings in search of his own "I" will not end...

Mikhail Petrovich worked at a lathe for almost forty years. He is an indispensable specialist at the defense plant. And he's not happy about it.

A young woman from Russia travels to London to investigate the disappearance of her older sister, who vanished years ago.

Nothing is forever. Everything passes. Are you sure? And a woman’s insult? Vera has come with her grandson to see her old childhood friend, Yura, and wish him a happy birthday. She has come with a gift that Yura remembers all his life. The remaining life.

A young night watchman at the Anton Chekhov museum in Yalta encounters a mysterious, weary intruder who appears to be the playwright himself, returned from the dead. Over the course of a single night, the two share a series of quiet, existential interactions within the preserved rooms of the estate.