Discoveries from Russia World Cinema

Anna Grigoryevna, an ordinary Soviet woman, dreamed of a trip to Paris for thirty years. And in 1986, during perestroika, she finally finds herself in the city of her dreams. Her husband and son give her a camera, but because of an excess of emotions, she forgets all the instructions and brings the film, which, when developed, turned out to be a marriage. Recently, the adult son of Anna Grigoryevna found a film. And I decided that this is modern art! He walks around the studios, exhibition curators, they laugh at him, this story is incomprehensible to his mother, his girlfriend is not interested in it. And between these walks, a life passes in which each of these women claims her rights to him.

The story of the two wrestler girls in and out of the ring. Mephisto, the champion of the NFR and the champion of India, is a the sales manager in everyday life, while Casey, or the Queen of the Scream, is a recent graduate of the University.

What is going to happen if the painting of the great Dutch artist suddenly comes to life in a half-abandoned Russian village?

Igor and Sveta visit Igor's hometown. Igor wants nothing more than to spend the weekend recording a fun vlog with his girlfriend when a talk with his mom uncovers more of a pressing problem in his relationship with Sveta.

This movie is about one day on the construction site.

The plot of the film is based on the lyrical story of a young boy named Kirill. The film takes place on the first spring holiday 8th of March. On this day, the main character Kirill begin hilarious adventure in search of the bouquet for his mother.

Shamans and knights, witches and artisans of the past centuries are the characters of an ancient legend about love, hate, and loyalty to the ancestral land. The plot is based on the legend of the Danube, the son of the White Swan, who once came to the ancient Udmurts from heaven in order to understand those who live on Earth.

Developer Alina presents an AI-based voice assistant model called "Joe". Meanwhile, her husband is trapped in a burning room with his mistress. Will their feelings be able to fix the problem?

A story about a person who stands alone against the system, strange neighbors, and the growing chaos around them. Frightening things happen nearby, yet life goes on: him still go out to feed the stray cats and leave notes on the walls, trying somehow to reach the people around them. This is St. Petersburg without embellishment - cold, bleak, and full of tension. A city where, among ice and dark courtyards, one stubborn character keeps holding on and refuses to back down.

With his characteristic energy and absurdist humor, Sergey Orlov examines everyday absurdities—from awkward sugar sticks in cafes to barbershop visits and belief in aliens.

A struggling actress on the set of a B-horror movie can't do what her tyrannical director demands of her. Everything changes when she finds herself in a closed pavilion all alone.

DUEL is a psychological and spiritual indie-short horror film inspired by actual events that took place in the suburbs of Long Island, NY circa 1979. The film stars Jordan Isaiah White from the major motion picture TheBlackPhone and Mike Stanly from the series Ozark. DUEL is the first Production from actor John C. Martin and the 5th collaboration between John and award winning Director Nicholas Crocket.

A story about a girl who came upon a somebody else’s dream, and helped that dream come true. For this she was granted ability to fly.

The Pomors are the descendants of the ancient Novgorodians who left the power of the Moscow prince for the harsh forests of the Tersky coast in order to preserve their former freemen. Today they fish, farm and even plant forests. They will not exchange their harsh, difficult, but free life for any other.

A young soldier returns from the front line with a serious wound. How will he build his new life?

Six-year-old Ilkham is spending his summer vacation in the village, but he's feeling homesick, missing his parents terribly. Grandparents are shielding a child from the harsh reality, all while grappling with their own grief over the recent loss of their children in a plane crash. In an effort to cheer up his grandson, Grandfather Rasim remembers the legendary game “Wishbone” which starts a series of wish fulfillments. At first, Rasim's wife Sufia doesn't like what's happening, but gradually the game begins to transform the lives and aspirations of the entire family and the entire village in the most incredible way.

n pursuit of easy money, students Tyoma and Maks create a fraudulent business for admission to prestigious universities. The scheme is safe, and the expected income excites their imagination. Everything went according to plan, until fatal love intervened in the fate of everyone.

The life of St. John of Kronstadt

Happiness and suffering alternate when a Man and a Woman meet. And the voice of Reason does not work here. Because Love is unbearable, but without it there is no Life at all.

A woman performs Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” in Russian while Marlene Dietrich’s German version of the song plays in time.

In the late fifties, a strange patient was being treated in one of the Moscow hospitals. Doctors could not diagnose him in any way, and meanwhile he was getting worse and worse. But the unusual patient had no right to tell what happened to him. Mahmud Rafikov was not an employee of the special services or a classified scientist. He was a cinematographer, but his name was not indicated in the credits, his films were numbered, not named, and he himself was under a non-disclosure agreement for fifty years. He was the only one who participated in the filming when Yuri Gagarin landed, he was filming nuclear explosions at close range, and he was lucky enough to survive after the release of radioactive elements on a submarine. Korolev and Kurchatov admired his skill. At the age of ninety-one, this only eyewitness of the events remembers every little thing.

This is a film about DJ, vocalist, host and showman, former lead singer of the "140 beats per minute" group Yura Abramov, who left this world in January 2020.

The main character is a participant in the first Chechen war. He reads a story dedicated to his comrade in arms. A vision comes to the hero during the reading of each letter. Now war, death, love take on peculiar images. After he finishes reading, he leaves the room and finds himself in a cemetery with unmarked graves. Next to him is a Chechen with a severed ear. Men have a short dialogue before they disappear.

The Nogai people are descendants of the Golden Horde who are living in the Southern Caucasus of Russia. They experience issues of language loss, identity loss, and lately, an ecological disaster. Formerly lush and green, today the Nogai steppe is turning into a desert. In the autumn, the team led by a simple woman named Gulfira goes deep into the new desert for several months. Every day they walk for many kilometres under the icy, sandy wind and plant branches of Juzgun – a shrub with long roots that can stop the sand. Will Gulfira survive in this battle for the homeland, or will the Nogai land disappear along with its people?

Seva Lovkachev on growing up, the influence of parents, raising a son, YouTube, religion, empathy and boundaries.

New animated film by Rim Sharafutdinov

There’s a new member in the mysterious knitting club for mature men. On his first day he sees that there’s someone who wants to seize power over the club. He decides to bring back justice. The bad guy has already mastered the skill of knitting but our hero has resolve and best intentions. But… are they that good after all?

The Putin era in Russian politics began on 31 December 1999, shortly before the millennium celebrations. The children born on that day and at the turn of the millennium have now come of age. They have only ever known ex-KGB man Vladimir Putin at the pinnacle of power. What do this generation think and feel? Some are ardent Putin opponents, for others he is an idol. Some want to leave the country others want to fight for change. From the perspective of these millennium children, torn between private dreams and political aspirations, a nuanced portrait of the ‚Putin generation‘ emerges.

Pseudo-scientific film about the nature and properties of mold.

"Oh, ballet, how I hate you!" - the film begins here and ends with burning confession of love for ballet. They say that to go from hatred to love takes just one step. In fact - thousands of daily steps. And 52 minutes of film.

Children are the most reliable investment, in the best sense of the word. Each of the little heroes of the film has its own character, different destinies, but they are united by the fact that all these children found themselves in a difficult life situation.

The author of the work in a grotesque form tries to convey to the viewer that school education can not only make people better, but also, with an inappropriate approach to training, turn them into notorious monsters. We follow one lesson in school of fantastic, but such recognizable monsters.

An evocative, impressionistic drama of love and loss.

An art film by Timur Novikov and Sergey Shutov.

New mystical film by producers Ivan Kapitonov and Svyatoslav Podgayevsky.

The story of the famous chess match between world champion Mikhail Botvinnik and young challenger David Bronstein.

Anatoly Grebnev is one of the iconic screenwriters of our cinema. In 2023 he would have turned one hundred years old. He died before reaching eighty. His screenwriting works include “July Rain” by Marlen Khutsiev and “St. Petersburg Secrets,” one of the first Russian television series; “Success” with Leonid Filatov, “Prokhindiada, or Running in Place” with Alexander Kalyagin, “Diary of a School Principal” with Oleg Borisov. He worked with Yuliy Raizman and Anatoly Efros, and left our time with a living and relevant “Diary of the Last Screenwriter.” The peculiarity of Grebnev’s fate is that he came to cinema only in the middle of his life - as an adult, mature person. His childhood, youth and youth were full of hopes and failures, love and loss. The film will tell not only about Grebnev’s film biography, but also about that first life that he left for the sake of cinema.

Following a mass emigration from Russia, a poignant love letter emerges in the abandoned home spaces of friends and family.

The film is dedicated to the 125th anniversary A.E. Kulakovsky's poem "Shaman's Dream". The language and images of cinema convey the poet's foresight about future events in Russia and in the world.

Svetlana is the main character, a 42-year-old woman, a neurologist. Goes to advanced training courses. At lectures, considering this occupation very pointless, together with colleagues, he enters into a controversy with a famous professor who has been studying the human brain all his life. The man emotionally makes it clear to the women present that their behavior is very justified, since the human brain, in fact, always resists its own work, fulfilling its main natural purpose – to transmit the genome to the next generation. And modern society, trying to make people out of us, is only rushing against nature itself. Svetlana's personal life is not particularly developing. She's married. There are no children. Emotional and domestic disorder forces her to have a relationship on the side. What will she do at the most critical moment of her life and what will be her future fate, will it be the choice of her own mind or will nature put everything in its place?

"Life is the Best Playwright..." is the third album of the famous Armenian chansonnier Garik Oganisyan, recorded during a period of deep depression from the comments of haters and the complex processes of personality formation.

On New Year's Eve, the ambulance service and the trauma department of the Torzhok hospital have a lot of work to do. Someone fried cutlets for the festive table and burned himself, someone broke his leg, someone had a sixth birth, and someone just got drunk and fell right under the wheels of a passing car, the daughter beat the old mother, and the man has all the signs of a heart attack, but he refuses to be hospitalized, hoping for a Russian " maybe»... People argue, shout, cry, resist. And only under anesthesia they calm down and fall silent. Anesthesia as a metaphor of modern life, it is as if scattered and in the air. We hear it in the president's congratulatory New Year's speech, and we also calm down... And only the ambulance starts the engine and rushes to the next call.

Sonya Medovshchikova about her quiet voice, relationships, first jokes, Russian fantasy, frightening old ladies and much more.

The largest country in the world is covered with snow and darkness for more than six months of the year. Winter became a signature Russian feature just as much as the “secret Russian soul.” This season is praised by the greatest Russian authors, musicians, and painters. Our film will show how people and winter interact now, in the 21st century, across vast expanses of Russia. The audience will be given a chance to travel through a full cycle of winter and follow all the changes happening to the flora & fauna, and even to human nature.

A successful top executive, Yulay, returns to his native village to sell his late father's farm, but becomes entangled in a conflict with a ruthless farmer, Jafar, over a herd of horses. To overcome the challenges and win an equestrian wrestling competition, Yulay brings together three teenagers, for each of whom the sport becomes both a personal challenge and a path to adulthood. Ataysal is a story about how, through hardship, hard work, and a deep connection to one's roots, a person finds themselves and learns to become a source of strength for others. This film is a family adventure drama about returning to one's roots, generational continuity, and the transformative power of mentorship.

The story is about a musician, the conflict is based on the confrontation of classical jazz and alternative music.

The movie is a game. Here the fiction and fantasy of children participating in the competition for the best monument to Pushkin enters into a dialogue with the creative imagination of the poet.

A technological race of emotionless aliens arrives on Earth. For the mission to find a source of energy and save their kind, the best representatives of the male and female sexes, Alpha 1 and Alpha 2, were chosen, and for the most successful contact with people, the wayward "human scientist" Beta set off with them. Thanks to their gadget bracelets, all three take on human form and receive the names Alexander, Igor and Larisa.

Slava and Katya come to the forest for a picnic. This is an important day for Slava; he proposes marriage to Katya. But this fabulous walk will have an unexpected ending.

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries / Rebuilding of the destroyed Siberian village of Taseevo / Railroad station Sljudjanka / Abandoned mica pits near Lake Baikal / Soči health resort / Chudjakovskij-Park / Beach near Tuapse / The loading of silk / Afghanistan, Kabul / Peacetime use of tanks / Mountain road / Chapel in the Caucasus.

The husband, having learned about his wife's infidelity, comes to the lover's house with the intention of killing him...