Discoveries from Soviet Union World Cinema

A cult Soviet musical based on Ali Baba story with spoken-word interludes stylized as Persian poetry.

The screen version of the Saltykov-Shchedrin tale about how two complacent generals miraculously found themselves on an uninhabited island. How a peasant was courting the generals, feeding and dressing them, content himself with crumbs from their table. They only slightly thanked him, but in the end they gave him only glass of vodka and a penny of silver.

The first Russian talking picture which won a prize at the 1st Venice IFF. The action is set in 1923. The USSR is struggling with hunger and economic ruin. It is a story of homeless teenagers for whom a work commune is set up with the idea of uniting and reforming them.

A war veteran gets involved in a brawl...

A first of a series of movies about Kovpak - the partisans chief during WWII.

The sad story of stray dogs.

The film depicts the life of a Georgian village after the Second World War. Kesou Mirba, appointed as a brigadier in Saken, wants to get a bountiful harvest of corn on the scarce land of the highland village, he is sure that valuable mineral fertilizer will be found there. Kesou's plans are opposed by farmers who do not want to change their old way of life. One of them will replace the soil samples to be sent to the laboratory.

It is a satirical film for adults about family, the father is an embezzler, the daughter is a hunter for favorable gentlemen, and the son is a blockhead and a drunkard. The offscreen text is the story of the little girl who repeats idiomatic expressions which she doesn’t understand ("he has set going the refrigerators ", "he whips vodka", "he has lost his head"...) and these idiomatic expressions are shown in as they are represented in her mind – in the literal sense. It is one of the first films of "new", "non-Disney" Soviet animation.

About the heroism of the border guards who took upon themselves the full brunt of the blow of the Nazi hordes on the first day of the Great Patriotic War.

Based on the novel of the same name by Aleksandr Lukin and Dmitriy Polyanovskiy. Russia, 1919. A young soldier of the First Cavalry Army, Aleksei Mikhalyov, is sent to work in the provincial Cheka. Here in the south of the country there is a large White Guard underground led by the elusive Markov. Aleksei gets into the gang, where he is mistaken for his own. The day of the operation to eliminate the white underground is appointed. But unforeseen circumstances destroy the plans of the Chekists.

A group of young people wants to settle in an abandoned village and revive it

Preparing for a meeting of former classmates, a woman recalls her school years and her first love.

The third part of Tajik trilogy.

Demobilized sailor Silaev marries his beloved girlfriend Natasha. Soon he learns that his wife's family lives on unearned income, and categorically refuses to participate in their speculative schemes. Silaev and Natasha leave for Siberia, to one of the timber industry enterprises. There, he begins to fight resolutely against the predatory destruction of the forest and the indifference and selfishness of the managers. Natasha, unable to endure the hardships of life, leaves her husband. Silaev remains alone and, continuing his struggle, finds new friends.

The life story of gifted geologist Vladimir Ishutin, as seen through the eyes of his sons.

The action takes place in the late 1940s. A large-scale land-surveying research is underway in a remote area of Eastern Siberia. The work had almost been concluded when a wire arrives with the news of people disappearing in the locality of Yambuy. The expedition’s chief and radioman decide to go in search of the lost ones. The local Evenk hunters come to their aid. Many dangerous adventures lie in store for these daring people before they find the culprit – a man-eating bear.

The film is a monograph about the life and work of the great Russian actor. Actors, theater figures, relatives and friends remember working with him.

A priest from a Carpathian village who sheltered an orphan teenager, Bogdan Chichura, sends him to a theological seminary. After graduating from the seminary with honors, the young man enters the Gregorian University, becomes a doctor of theology and returns to his village. Here he learns that his beloved Ruzhena, deceived by the bishop's letter, has gone to a monastery. And her father, a Rusyn, is being persecuted by the authorities and the church for his leftist beliefs. Bogdan embarks on a difficult struggle for the honor of his loved ones. But the Second World War begins.

The post-war years. Yakut hunter Bykadyrov discovers mysterious footprints in the taiga leading to a village where the head of a geological expedition has just been murdered. A group of state security officers arrives from Moscow to investigate the crime.

An adventures of a young boy after taking a wrong turn on his road to home...

An unemployed American gets a job in a shooting gallery as a live target. The greedy capitalist owner charges patrons double for the chance to shoot at a human being.

A despairing scholar sells his soul to Satan in exchange for one night with a beautiful young woman.

After hearing some amazing stories from a storyteller, the children decide to create their own fairytale. Of course, there will be a king. And what’s a king without a queen? She’ll be there too — and she’ll even save her husband. The tale promises to be fun and playful, but unlike any ordinary fairytale.

A young physicist, the energetic and talented Timur Akbarov, joins the small established team of the scientific laboratory. Step by step — bowing and not stumbling — the enterprising hero gets closer and closer to the goal...

Elena Nikolaevna Stakhova, a girl from a noble family, is full of lofty ideals. Seeking “active good” and heroism and not finding the use of her powers in her environment, she falls in love with the Bulgarian student Insarov, a poor commoner democrat. Elena completely devotes herself to her chosen one and follows him along his difficult path. After the wedding, the young people decide to leave for Bulgaria, where the struggle for freedom has been going on for 400 years. But, never having reached his homeland, Insarov dies...

A small Russian town is prospering, because it's main industry is the chocolate factory. But this kind of prosperity comes at a very high price. Everybody in this town is eating plenty of chocolate, and everyone is suffering from diabetes. There is a thick smell of chocolate in the air, and the local river has brown water, that is filthy with chocolate pollution. So people decided to put an end to their suffering and to shut the chocolate factory down. But the chocolate business is so lucrative, that the factory is expanding, and rapidly increasing the production of chocolate. Conscious citizens are terrified, and an anti-chocolate riot is brewing.

After successfully graduating from school, the young man was a little confused about his choices. While he was studying, he was interested in many professions, but now he went to work at a factory, knowing that he would not lose anything by learning more about life...

Ivashko was a small fisherman. Once, Baba Yaga noticed him and decided to kidnap him. She forged a thin voice at the smith's and called Ivashko like his grandmother usually called him...

The story is about a king who went incognito to the people to find out what his subjects thought of him.

The film covers the events in Lithuania in 1940-1945 and tells about the life of the Lithuanian intelligentsia. The characters are placed in crisis situations, when the problem of choosing a path, the problem of social and historical self-determination of the fate of the people and each person inevitably arises.

The village Lernasar is doomed to destruction. Its inhabitants, headed by the teacher Kamsaryan, come to defend their history.

About a little boy apprentice of an icon workshop who dreamed of becoming a circus clown.

Two young nationalists from Soviet Estonia falls under the influence of popular radio DJ Rudolf Talgre, who during the war collaborated with the Nazis and was proud of it and now settled in Sweden. However, one of the friends begins to doubt the correctness of the “voice”, which leads to a quarrel between friends ... After going through betrayal and murder, students - Juhan and Linda - still manage to get into the coveted Sweden, where they actually learn the price of the words of their ideological mentor.

Swept up in political unrest during World War I, two sisters in St. Petersburg cope with turbulent romances as Russian history is made around them.

The brother and sister were very fond of having dinner with adults, their remarks made the guests laugh, and mom and dad were pleased that the guests saw such a mind and such development.

Arvīds Lasmanis can't hold any job for long because he is not ready to tolerate deceit and slapdash work. He still has to feed his family, by chance he finds a well-paid job as a gravedigger. A friend helps Arvīds to find a place in a construction team, but other workers don't approve of Arvīds' high principles. His wife accuses him of not knowing how to make money, the family lives crammed in one room of a shared flat. The Soviet absurd comedy tells a story about a man who, while at odds with the system, won't lose his conscience and his true self, even if it means saying no to wealth and comfort.

A strange phenomenon has been noticed on the outskirts of our Solar system that quickly approaches the Earth. It's called "Orion's Loop." A spaceship with a crew of people and androids identical to them is sent to intercept the anomaly. But strange events start happening as the spaceship approaches the mysterious loop.

An excellent 1969 documentary, S. Raitburt’s The Kuleshov Effect, made about a year before Lev Kuleshov died, and interviewing him at length, both about his filmmaking and his far lengthier career as a teacher (including some fascinating remarks about Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo). Also interviewed is the father of Russian Formalism, Viktor Shklovsky, who worked with Kuleshov as a screenwriter on a Jack London adaptation, By the Law, in 1926.

1944. On the Polish front, the fascists are building a secret defensive barrier. The task of obtaining the plans for the structures is assigned to a young intelligence agent, Maria, who must make contact with the frontline intelligence resident, Major Kurtz, behind enemy lines…

A story about a good boy and a shoemaker who wants to do his job, but faces many challenges because of his advanced age. This thoughtful old man takes care of birds, and his good deeds come back to him in caring neighborhood kids who are trying to help the man, making new orders. But will they perform a cobbler’s work well?

A story about a little raccoon who needs to prove to his mother he's brave enough to go to the pond to gather herbs at night, on his birthday.

On New Year's Eve, in the forest palace of culture, the animals staged a beauty contest, in which the winner was determined by a computer. Meanwhile, the computer-savvy mother crow wants to make sure her daughter wins. She succeeds, and the beautiful Fox leaves the palace upset. The kind-hearted winner gives her the crown, realizing that she received it undeservedly. When Foxy won the competition and became Miss New Year, little Crow became Miss Honesty.

An inexperienced reporter, Bob Sketch, is hired by the Strykoroba Corporation to cover Moscow, where his sensational and inaccurate reports lead to a series of misadventures and a reprimand from his boss upon returning to the US.

Following an order of the landowner, the bride of Arsena’s fellow villager gets kidnapped and the bride’s father is relentlessly flogged. Arsena tries to rescue the woman but fails and goes to the mountains with his newly married wife. Above all, Arsena learns that his wife is impregnated by the landowner and burns down his house. Arsena gets arrested, but manages to escape and joins the rebel peasants. Arsena feels that with the passage of time the rebels turn into criminals and continues to fight with the oppressors alone.

The setting for this off-beat drama of love and jealousy is the Pushkin Poetry Festival in Boldino. Liosha and his wife Tania are walking through the plush forest around Boldino when a mysterious figure pops up from behind a tree and asks the couple a question on an esoteric point of Pushkin scholarship. From that strange beginning, the man, whose name is Klimov, starts to ease himself into the couple's private space, and trouble ensues. Complementing this story is the festival itself, enactments of Pushkin's works, and emotional debates among the festival-goers over the meaning of his poetry.

The family where Epp serves is preparing to receive important guests on whom the career of the head of the family depends. Everyone is busy preparing the gala dinner, and only the owner's son Eugen does not take any part in this. At night he suddenly becomes ill, and Epp is sent for help. On a rainy night, she spends a long time looking for a doctor, as a result of which she becomes seriously ill. And Eugen’s illness, as it turned out, was only the result of his suspiciousness...

Based on the story of the same name by F. M. Dostoevsky, and staged by Moscow Art Theater named after. Gorky.

This story is about a puppy who liked it not to belong to anyone. He had no friends, no family, and no relatives. He was cheerfully singing songs, being happy that he did not want to listen to anyone and did not need to ask permission for anything and could do what he wanted. But is it possible to live like that forever?

One day from the social and personal life of the chief engineer of the plant.

Is it possible to escape from fate if you live quietly and unnoticed, without causing harm to anyone? It turns out it's impossible. Thus, the arrival of a famous singer and a popular TV journalist entails fatal and unpredictable events.

At the center of the story is the story of the relationship between the employees of the service station and a hapless customer who has lost hope of getting his car.

Schoolboy Igor dreams of becoming a naval officer. But his father, a captain second rank, dreams of a musical career for his son. When the family moved to one of the northern islands, Igor organized a choir at school and became its leader. One day, the boy was hurt, and he began to doubt his abilities. But the arts competition in Murmansk, where he successfully performed in place of the soloist who had lost his voice, restored the dreamer's faith in his talent.

There is a war. In occupied Ukraine, the fascists fiercely suppress any centers of resistance among the civilian population, but now young people are joining the fight against the invaders. In the town of Malin, Zhytomyr Region, Nina Sosnina and her friends create an underground cell.

Second movie of a dilogy about Russian paratroopers started with "V zone osobogo vnimaniya"

The most famous work of the remarkable classic of Finnish literature Hella Wuolijoki is the saga of the Niskavuori family, consisting of five plays. The first of them, *"The Young Mistress of Niskavuori"*, which reflects the Finnish national character, tells the story of love, changes in life, disappointments, and views on morality through the eyes of straightforward, stubborn people from the countryside who must adapt to new circumstances. The action takes place in 1880.

Based on the short story by Yu. Shcherbak, ‘Harmonic Inspiration.’ The film’s characters meet at a concert in the Kyiv Philharmonic. That December evening, filled with Vivaldi’s astonishing music, becomes a part of each of the four people’s lives, helping them recall and understand their past.

Old Ahmed with his grandson and dog goes to the market, having only four coins. But the tax collector and the rich take his money. Wanting to take revenge on them, Ahmed pretends to be a wizard and threatens to turn them into donkeys...