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FILMS WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES:
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ADAM'S RIB  1992  77 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Vyacheslav Krishtofovich

Cast: I. Churikova, S. Ryabova, M. Golubkina, E.Bogdanova
This film portrays 3 generations of Russian women, living together in a typically tiny apartment and together enduring problems with men, finances and a changing society.
AELITA, THE QUEEN OF MARS  Silent Film:  1924  111 min.  (DVD)
Director: Yakov Protazanov
One of the most remarkable discoveries of the Soviet silent cinema, Aelita is a stunning big-budget science fiction spectacle. Enormous futuristic sets and radical constructionist costumes were designed by Alexandra Exter to enhance this story of romance, comedy and danger.  A Moscow engineer designs a spaceship and travels to Mars to meet the woman who haunts his dreams.
ALADDIN'S MAGIC LAMP  1966  84 min.  (DVD) 
Director: Boris Rytsarev
Cast: Boris Bystrov, Dodo Chogovadze, Sarry Karryev
A Russian version of the Arabic fairy tale.  

ALEXANDER NEVSKY  1938  110 min.  (VHS)   
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Classic cinematic rendition of the historical tale of one of Russia's great heroes, the 13th-century warrior-prince. Sergei Prokofiev's score has been recorded by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic for this 1994 video release.
AMPHIBIAN MAN (CHELOVEK-AMFIBIIA)  1962  97 min.  (DVD) 
Directors: Gennadii Kazanskii and Vladimir Chebotarev
Cast: Vladimir Korenev, Anastasiia Vertinskaia, Mikhail Kozakov, Nikolai Simonov, Vladlen Davydov, Aleksandr Smiranin, Iurii Medvedev, Georgii Tusuzov
Based on a story by Russian science fiction author Aleksandr Beliaev. Panic overtakes a port city when local fishermen report sightings of a "sea devil." It turns out to be an amphibious man named Ichthyander. His origin is unusual, his life secretive and full of mysteries.
ANDREI RUBLEV  1966  185 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Tarkovsky's acclaimed film tells the tale of the 15th-century icon painter who survives the cruelties of medieval Russia to create works of art. (note: restored director's cut, letterbox format). 
ANNA KARENINA  1988  103 min.  (VHS)        
Director: Alexander Zarkhi    
Cast: Tatyana Samoylova, Nikolai Gritsenko, Vasili Lanovoi
This Russian production of Tolstoy's classic 1870 novel of passion and morality traces the paths of two people, Anna and Vronsky.
ARMAVIR  1991  129 min.  (VHS)
Director: V. Abdrashitov
Cast: S. Kotakov, S. Shakurov, E. Shevchenko, M. Stoganova; Zh. Baizhambaev
A psychological drama in which the main character learns that a ship with his daughter aboard has sunk, with only a few passengers believed to have survived.  The film recounts the father's search for his missing daughter.
ARSENAL  Silent Film:  1928  73 min.  (DVD)
Director:  Alexander Dovzhenko

Cast:  S. Svashenko; G. Kharkov; A. Buchma

Based on an actual incident from 1918, the film's story concerns a group of Ukrainian Bolsheviks who battle against counter-revolutionary nationalist troops in Kiev.  The Bolsheviks put up an Alamo-like defense of their cause inside the city's "Arsenal" munitions plant.  Outnumbered by the nationalist troops, the defenders are overrun and defeated in the climactic battle, but their revolutionary spirit prevails.
AT HOME AMONG STRANGERS, A STRANGER AMONG HIS OWN [SVOI SREDI CHUZHIKH, CHUZHOI SREDI SVOIKH]  1974  97 min.  (DVD)
Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Cast: Iurii Bogatyrev, Anatolii Solonitsyn, Sergei Shakurov, Aleksandr Porokhovshchikov, Nikolai Pastukhov, Aleksandr Kaidanovskii, Nikita Mikhalkov
During the famines of the 1920s, the young Soviet government is gathering up gold across the land to buy bread from abroad.  An armored, guarded wagon filled with valuables disappears on the road to Moscow, and Red Army man Shilov is suspected of stealing it.  He learns that bandits kidnapped it, and decides to infiltrate their gang to recover the gold and restore his good name.
AUTUMN MARATHON  1980  100 min.  (DVD)
Director: Georgii Danelia
Cast: O. Basilashvili, N. Gundareva, E. Leonov, N. Kriuchkov, M. Neyelova
Comedy about a translator who can't say "no" to anyone. He jogs with a Danish colleague and runs constantly from wife to admirers to publisher to colleagues.
BALLAD OF A SOLDIER  1959  89 min.   (VHS & DVD)
Director: Grigorii Chukhrai
Cast: V. Ivashov; Zh. Prokhorenko; A. Maksimova; N. Kriuchkov; Ye. Urbanski
Touching film about a 19 year old soldier in World War II.
BARBARA THE FAIR WITH THE SILKEN HAIR  1969  85 min.  (DVD) 
Director: Alexander Row
Cast: Mikhail Pugovkin, Georgy Millyar, Anatoly Kubatsky
Fairy tale about a tsar held ransom by the underwater tsar Chudo-Yudo.
THE BARBER OF SIBERIA  1999  177 min.  (DVD) 
Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Cast: Oleg Menshikov, Julia Ormond, Richard Harris, Nikita Mikhalkov
A foreign entrepreneur ventures to Russia in 1885 with dreams of selling a new machine that can harvest trees in the Siberian forests.  He tries to push his daughter into a relationship with an influential general in hopes of getting financing for his harvester, but his daughter has other plans.
THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN  Silent Film:  1925  74 min.  (VHS)
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Cast: Alexander Antonov, Vladimir Barsky, Grigori Alexandrov
Eisenstein's depiction of the mutiny of the crew of the Potemkin during the insurrection of 1905 is one of the essential works in film history. Musical score by Dmitri Shostakovich, digitally remastered.
BED AND SOFA [TRET'IA MESHCHANSKAYA]  Silent Film:  1927   73 min.  (VHS & DVD)
Director: Abram Room
Script: Viktor Shklovski
This film is about a menage-a-trios during a housing shortage in Moscow.  Allegedly based on the triangle romance of Mayakovski, Lili, and Osip Brik. 
THE BLACK MONK  1988  (VHS) 
Director: I. Dykhovichny
Cast: Stanislav Liubshin and Tatiana Drubich
Based on the Chekhov work of the same name.
BLOW THE WHISTLE TWICE IN THE FOG  1980  80 min.  (DVD)  -  NEW

Director: Valerij Rodchenko

Cast: Nikolaj Grinko, Viktor Proskurin, Alexsandr Porokhovcshikov, Elena Kapitsa, Dagun Omaev, Lyubov' Virolajnen

A seaplane makes an emergency landing by the lake in unpopulated tundra. It carries a large sum of money. Someone takes all the money, and the only witness is killed. A few days later, the last ship of the navigating season leaves northern port, and its captain has an uneasy puzzle to solve: which passenger was involved in the robbery and murder...
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS  1968  (VHS) 
Director: Kira Muratova
Cast: Vladimir Vysotsky and Kira Muratova
Scripted by the feminist Natalya Ryazantseva, this is the first film by the renowned Kira Muratova.  Because of the objections of censors, the film was held "on the shelf"  until 1986.
BROTHER  1997  96 min.  (DVD)
Director: Alexei Balabanov
Cast: Sergei Bodrov Jr., Victor Sukhorukov, Svetlana Pismichenko, Maria Zhukova, Yury Kuznetsov
A man returns from his army service to St. Petersburg, where he finds his brother is now a contract killer for the Russian mob. Soon, both brothers are in the service of organized crime and team up to kill a Chechen mafia boss. This crime film addresses the social breakdown and accepted grimness of city life in the former Soviet Union. Bodrov's performance won him the Best Actor award at the 1997 Chicago International Film Festival.
BROTHER 2  2000  120 min.  (DVD) 
Director: Alexei Balabanov
Cast: Sergei Bodrov Jr., Viktor Sukhorukov, Sergei Makovetskii
In this sequel to Brother Danila meets up with his old army buddy, Konstantin, in Moscow. Konstantin tells Danila about his twin brother Dmitry, a professional hockey player in America, who is having a cash-flow problem, and wants to know if Danila can help him. Several days after this conversation Danila finds Konstantin dead. In order to straighten things out and avenge his friend, Danila goes to Chicago.
BURNT BY THE SUN  1994  134 min.   (VHS)  
Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Cast: Oleg Menchikov, Nikita Mikhalkov, Ingeborga Darkunaite, Nadya Mikhalkov
This 1995 Academy Award and Cannes winner tells the story of the happy family of a war hero which is destroyed by Stalin's secret police.
BY THE LAW and CHESS FEVER  Silent Films:  1926  80 min.  /  1925  28 min.  (VHS)  
Directors: Lev Kuleshov/Vsevolod Pudovkin
The first film, one of the most important of the Soviet silent era, is set in Alaska, where two men are killed in a remote cabin.  The second film, Pudovkin's first, is the story of a young chess fanatic who misses his wedding appointment. 
CHAPAYEV  1934  100 min.  (VHS)                                                        
Directors: Serge Vasilyev and Georgi Vasilyev
A stirring account of a beloved hero of the Russian Revolution, an illiterate Russian who served in the Czar's army and, after the Revolution, formed his own forces and went to the Red side.
CIGARETTE GIRL OF MOSSELPROM  Silent Film:  1924  78 min.  (VHS)
Director: Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky
A boisterous comedy satirizing Soviet life and the making of movies in the '20s.  The film follows the exploits of a cigarette girl suddenly discovered as an actress.  
CIRCUS  1936  89 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Grigori Alexandrov  
Cast: Lyubov Orlova 
Capitalism meets communism in this incredible story of an American circus artist who has a black baby, and the only way she can find happiness is among the Soviet people. A musical comedy. 

CITY ZERO  1988  84 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Karen Shakhnazarov
Cast: L. Filatov; O. Basilashvili; V. Menshov; A. Dzhigarkhanian
Comedy of the absurd.  Originally 103 min.  Almost 20 minutes cut  in video version.

CLOSE TO EDEN  In Mongolian and Russian:   1992  109 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Cast: Badema, Bayaertu, Vladimir Gostukhin, Baoyinhexige
An Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this film is set in the vast rolling steppes of inner Mongolia. A Russian truck driver, Sergei, accidentally enters the life of a Mongolian shepherd family and alters their traditional perspective when he takes the young shepherd Gombo on a trek into the city.

COME AND SEE  1985  142 min.  (VHS & DVD)
Director: Elem Klimov
Cast: Aleksei Kravchenko, Olga Mironova
Set in 1943 German-occupied Byelorussia, the film follows an adolescent boy through the nightmare that is war.
COMMISSAR  1967 (1988)  105 min.  (VHS)   
Director: Alexander Askoldov
Cast: Nonna Mordiukova, R. Bykov; R. Niedashkovskaya; V. Shukshin
This film was kept "in the drawer" for 21 years.  It tells the story of a pregnant Red Army Commissar who is billeted with a Jewish family.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT  1970  220 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Lev Kulijanov
Cast: Georgi Taratorkin, Innokenti Smoktunovsky, and Tatyana Bedova
An adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel about a student who, believing he is exempt from moral law, murders an old pawnbroker and her sister with an axe. 
CRUEL ROMANCE  1985  145 min.  (DVD)  - In repair
Director: Eldar Riazanov
Cast: Alisa Freindlikh, Larisa Guzeeva, Nikita Mikhalkov
Based on the play Bespridannitsa ("Without Dowry") by Alexander Ostrovsky, about a daughter of an impoverished noblewoman who must weigh her true love for an untrustworthy man who is engaged to another woman against the practical considerations offered by another--a suitor she happens to despise.
THE CUCKOO  In Russian, Finnish, and Lapp;  2002  103 min.  (DVD)

Director: Alexander Rogozhkin

Cast: Anni-Kristina Juuso, Viktor Bychkov, Ville Haapasalo

September 1944, in a land torn apart by war, a Finnish sniper is labeled a coward by his compatriots; as punishment, he is nailed to a rock and left to his own devices.  Not long after, a disgraced Russian Captain, en route to his court martial, is injured in an accident.  Both men are about to find out they have one thing in common.  Wounded and emotionally tortured, they are taken in by Anni, a young, resourceful war widow, who offers shelter to one while nursing the other back to health.  None of them understands the others' languages, but it doesn't seem to matter.  Isolated, the three unlikely roommates - a Finn, a Russian and a Lapp -  overcome both comic and tragic misunderstandings to form a passionate three-way relationship. 
DEFENSE COUNSEL SEDOV  1988/89  48 min.  (VHS)

Director: Evgeny Tsimbal
Cast: Vladimir Ilyin; Vsevolod Larionov
A psychological study of the mass paranoia surrounding the Stalin-era purge trials.  Based on a story by Ilya Zverev, published in 1964, but dropped from later collections of that author's works.
DEJA VU  In Polish and Russian:  1988  106 min.  (DVD)    
Director:  Juliusz Machulski
Cast:  Galina Petrova, Nikolai Karachentsov, Vladimir Golovin, Oleg Shlovskii, Jerzy Stuhr
A comedy that moves between Chicago and Odessa in 1925. A Windy-City hitman is sent to Odessa to kill a mob informant. The victim-to-be is an enterprising soul, taking full advantage of a newly opened shipping line serving Chicago, Odessa and Constantinople. He jealously guards his smuggling operation by hiring his own hitman. Hilarious!
DERSU UZALA  1974  140 min.  (VHS)
Director: Akira Kurosawa  Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa and Yuri Nagibin  
Cast: Maxim Munzuk, Yuri Solomin
Based on Vladimir Arsenyev's novel about an eccentric Mongolian frontiersman hired as a guide by a Soviet surveying crew. In this touching adventure, the soldiers first consider Uzala a naive relic of an uncivilized age. Yet his ingenuity and bravery are unmatched by any of them, and he becomes their unlikely savior in the treacherous Siberian wilderness. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1975.
DESERTER  1933  105 min.  (VHS & DVD*) 
Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin     
When offered the chance to live in comfort in another land, a Hamburg dockworker must decide whether or not to abandon his comrades.  "Deserter" uses dynamic montages and a powerful barrage of aural effects. *DVD is with the film End of Saint  Petersburg.

DIAMOND ARM (BRILLIANTOVAIA RUKA)  1968   100 min.  (DVD)   
Director: Leonid Gaidai
Cast: Iurii Nikulin, Nina Grebeshkova, Andrei Mironov, Anatolii Papanov
Semyon Gorbunkov goes on a cruise to Istanbul where he slips and breaks his arm. What he didn't know is that this was a signal for a gang of smugglers, also on the same cruise, to bandage his arm with gold and diamonds. After he returns home, the gangsters try to get their diamonds back, while the police try to catch them using Gorbunkov and his arm.

EARLY RUSSIAN CINEMA VOL. 6: CLASS DISTINCTIONS  94 min.  (VHS) 
Despite strict censorship intended to prevent inflammatory material, Vasilii Goncharov portrayed the hardship of rural life in The Peasants' Lot (1912), and an early film by Evgenii Bauer, The Silent Witnesses (1914) dealt frankly with servants' views of their masters. 

EARLY RUSSIAN CINEMA VOL. 7: EVGENII BAUER  95 min.  (VHS) 
The major discovery of the early Russian cinema. In a mere five prolific years, Bauer achieved mastery of several genres, including the social melodrama of A Child of the Big City (1913), erotic comedies like The 1002nd Ruse, and the psychological gothic drama of Daydreams.

EARTH  Silent Film:  1930  54 min.  (VHS)
Director:  Alexander Dovzhenko
Cast:  Semyon Svashenko; Stephen Shkurat
The theme of the life cycle of man is developed through a constant  juxtaposition and intertwining of images of life and death.

EAST/WEST (EST/OUEST)  1999  125 min.  (DVD) 
Director:  Regis Wargnier
Cast:  Sandrine Bonnaire, Oleg Menchikov, Catherine Deneuve
At the end of the war, Stalin invited Russians who fled the country to return.  The talented young doctor Alexei Golovine optimistically returns to the Soviet Union with his French wife, Marie, and their son.  Their arrival is a rude one. Interrogations are followed by the grim reality of post-war Soviet Union:  shared apartments, suspicious neighbors, and lack of privacy. Marie soon starts to rebel against the circumstances, but her husband finds that his talents are needed and appreciated by the authorities.  Marie soon faces a terrifying choice:  to leave her husband and child for freedom, or to stay and confront a grim future.  

THE END OF ST. PETERSBURG and DESERTER  (DVD)
Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin
The End of St. Petersburg (1927, 87 min.) Epic film about the 1917 Revolution
Deserter (1933, 106 min.) The first sound film from Pudovkin.  A Hamburg dockworker must decide whether or not to abandon his commitment to the class struggle.

ERRORS OF YOUTH  1989  87 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Boris Frumin  
Cast: Stanislav Zhdanko, Marina Neyelova, Natalia Varley
Banned in 1979 because it was found to be too close to reality in the Soviet Union, this film is a complex portrait of a young man adrift in a society of diminished expectation and constant compromise.

THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF MR. WEST IN THE LAND OF THE BOLSHEVIK  Silent Film:  1924  78 min.  (VHS)

Director: Lev Kuleshov
Cast: Porfiri Podobed; Boris Barnet; Vsevolod Pudovkin
A satire of America's slanted view of Russia. A bourgeois American is challenged by his friends to visit those "mad, savage Russians." Once he arrives, he is beset by an onslaught of strange characters and events, thrusting him into a world of danger and intrigue. Soon Mr. West realizes that only through his all-American ingenuity can he survive.

FATHER OF A SOLDIER  1964  (VHS)  
Director: Revaz Chkheidze
Cast: S. Zakhariadze; V. Privaltsev; A. Nazarov
The film's hero is an old peasant and vine-grower. During WWII he travels all the way to Berlin with the army in search of his son.

A FORGOTTEN TUNE FOR THE FLUTE  1987  131 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Eldar Ryazanov
Cast: Leonid Filatov; Tatyana Dogileva; and Irina Kupchenko
The bloated Soviet bureaucracy is satirized in this perestroika-era comedy about a love triangle.

FREEZE-DIE-COME TO LIFE  1989  105 min.  (VHS)
Director: Vitaly Kanevsky
Cast: P. Nazarov; D. Durakarova; Ye. Popova
Deals with the conditions around a labor camp in the Stalinist period through the eyes of two children.  It is based in part on the experience of the director. 

A FRIEND OF THE DECEASED  1997  100 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Viacheslav Kristofovich
Cast: Alexandre Lazarev, Tatiana Krivitskaia, Evgueni Pachin, Elena Korikova, Angelika Nevolina,Constantin Kostychin, Serguei Romaniouk
In this dark comedy, a well-educated but unemployed translator, Tolla, discovers that his successful wife is planning to leave him. Unable to find a decent job, Tolla takes a drastic step that leads him, almost accidentally, into a world of casual crime and unusual punishment.

THE GENERAL LINE or THE OLD AND THE NEW  Silent Film:  1929  90 min.  (VHS)
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Extensively revised to keep abreast of changing policies and strengthen anti-religious theme, this story of a farm woman who starts a co-operative village made extensive use of non-professional actors.

GENTLEMEN OF FORTUNE  1971  88 min.  (DVD)  -  NEW  

Director:  Aleksandr Seryj

Cast: Georgij Vitsin, Anatolij Papanov, Lyubov' Sokolova, Evgenij Leonov, Savelij Kramarov, Pavel Shpringfeld, Roman Filippov

A kindergarten director, a very kind man and a talented teacher, finds himself chasing a stolen treasure, and not for his own profit, but with a noble aim: using his likeness to a dangerous thief, who had stolen Alexander the Great' helmet, he has to find and return the treasure to the country. The gentle hero has to live with the thieves, and his kindness and pedagogical experience have an unexpected effect on the hardened criminals...

GOOD LUCK, GENTLEMEN!  1992  95 min.  (VHS)
Director: Vladimir Bortko
Cast: Nikolai Karchentsev and Darya Mikhailova
A tragicomic story about businessmen in Russia today.  Follow the misadventures of Vladimir, Oleg, and Olga as they try to get ahead.

GORKY TRILOGY, PART I  MY CHILDHOOD  1938  100 min.  (VHS)   
Director: Mark Donskoi
Part I in a three-part series based on the autobiography of Maxim Gorky.  At the age of four Gorky is placed in the care of his cruel grandfather and loving grandmother, eventually forced onto the streets and becoming a wandering beggar.

GORKY TRILOGY, PART II  MY APPRENTICESHIP  1939  100 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Mark Donskoi
In the second part of the trilogy, Gorky begins earning his living at the age of eight. Becoming an apprentice to a bourgeois family that falsely promises him an education, he secretly learns to read on his own and sets off on a series of land and sea voyages.

GORKY TRILOGY, PART III  MY UNIVERSITY  1940  100 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Mark Donskoi
In the final part of his trilogy, Donskoi deals with Gorky's early manhood. At the University Gorky meets several liberal intellectuals and is introduced to their radical politics.

THE GUARD  1989  110 min.  (VHS)
Director: Alexander Rogozhkin
Cast: A. Buldalkov; S. Kuprianov; A. Poluyan
Shot in gritty black and white, the psychology of army conscripts enduring nightmarish conditions as they escort hardened criminals on a high-security train from one prison to the next is examined.

HEART OF A DOG  1988  131 min.  (DVD)
Director: V. Bortko                  
Cast: Evgeni Evstigneev, Roman Kartsev, Nina Ruslanova
A satire about a surgeon who implants a heart and brain of a human into a dog.  The dog eventually transforms into a human, becomes associated with the local Party officialdom, and begins to terrorize the professor. The movie is based on the 1925 story by Mikhail Bulgakov which was very hard to find in Russia up until perestroika.

HOUSE OF FOOLS  2002  108 min.  (DVD) 

Director:  Andrei Konchalovsky

Cast:  Julia Vysotsky; Stanislav Varkki; Elena Fomina; Marina Politseimako

Set in the Russian-Chechen War a group of inmates in an asylum are left to themselves as war rages on outside.  Jana, a patient, struggles to lead the others as she dreams of the day her imaginary fiance, pop musician Bryan Adams, will come to take her away to a better life.

I AM CUBA  In Spanish and Russian:   1964  141 min.  (VHS)
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
The Cuban Revolution is at the center of this poetic film that unites four stories.  A uniquely earthy view of Cuba in the early 1960's.

THE IDIOT  2003  500 min.  (DVD) 

Director:   Vladimir Bortko

Cast:  Evgeny Mironov; Lidiya Velezheva; Vladimir Mashkov; Aleksandr Lazarev

This film is based on the novel of Fyodor Dostoevsky "The Idiot." 

INCIDENT AT MAP GRID 36-80  1983  85 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Mikhail Tumanshvili
A Cold War thriller about an apocalyptic struggle following a Soviet naval squadron's encounter with a disabled American nuclear submarine. The submarine's computer malfunctions, inadvertently launching its nuclear payload. The film is important for its unprecedented portrait of Soviet military life and its modern technology.

INSPECTOR GENERAL  1954  133 min.  (VHS)
Director: Vladimir Petrov
Cast: Ivan Gorbachev; Iuri Tolubeev; Tamara Nosova; Aleksei Gribov
Gogol's play performed by the Moscow Art Theater troupe.

THE INTERVENTION  1968  107 min.  (DVD)  -  NEW

Director: Gennadij Poloka

Cast: Yurij Katin-Yartsev, Vladimir Vysotskij, Marlen Khutsiev, Efim Kopelyan, Andrej Tolubeev, Georgij Shtil', Nikolaj Marton

The movie is set during the last days of foreign intervention against Soviet Russia. Police are searching everywhere for a bolshevik named Brodsky but cannot find him. Meanwhile, a man named Michel Voronov serves as a teacher to a rich woman's son, Zhen'ka.

IRONY OF FATE OR HAVE A GOOD SAUNA  1975  185 min.  (DVD) 
Director: Eldar Riazanov
Cast: Andrei Miagkov, Babara Brylska, Iurii Iakovlev
A staple of Russian New Year's Eve broadcasts, this made-for-television feature ranks as one of the most popular comedies made in the former Soviet Union. A drunken New Year's gathering leaves a man in the wrong apartment in the wrong city, although the nearly identical surroundings make him think otherwise for a while. A run-in with the apartment's true resident leads to comical confrontations and unexpected romance.

IVAN THE TERRIBLE (PART ONE)  1944  85 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Sergei Eisenstein 
Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Cast: Nikolai Cherkasov, Ludmila Tselikovskaya, Serafima Birman, Pavel Kadochnikov, Mikhail Zharov, Ambrose Buchma
Eisenstein's monumental final work chronicles the life of Tsar Ivan IV. In part one of the epic, Ivan ruthlessly extends his empire by wresting power from a corrupt aristocracy and conquering neighboring enemies.

IVAN THE TERRIBLE (PART TWO)  1946 (released in 1958)  85 min.  (DVD)
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Cast:  Nikolai Cherkasov, Serafima Birman, Pavel Kadochnikov, Andrei Abrikosov, Mikhail Zharov, Ambrose Buchma
Part two details Ivan's revenge on the friends and allies who had denounced him.

IVAN VASILEVICH CHANGES PROFESSIONS  1973  96 min.  (VHS & DVD)
Director: Leonid Gaidai
Cast: Yakovlev, Kuravlev, Demianenko, Kramarov, Seleneva, Kushinskaia, Etush, Pugovkin
Loosely adapted from Bulgakov's comedy, Ivan the Terrible and the Time Machine. Lots of slapstick humor.

JAZZMAN  1984  80 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Karen Shakhnazarov
Cast:  I. Sklyar; A. Chorny; N. Averyuskin; P. Shcherbakov; E. Tsyplakova
In the 1920's a young musician is expelled from a conservatory for playing the decadent Western form known as ragtime. He puts together a real jazz group, recruiting two street musicians and a former saxophonist in the Tsarist marching band. A delightful film. 

JOLLY FELLOWS  1934  89 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Grigori Alexandrov 
Cast: Leonid Utyosov, Lyubov Orlova, Maria Strelkova, Yelena Tyapkina 
The first musical comedy directed by Alexandrov, this film is a triumphant rags-to-fame story of a shepherd boy who reaches lofty heights as a jazz-orchestra conductor.  It is a good example of Soviet cinema in the 1930s. 

KINO-EYE and THREE SONGS OF LENIN  1924  78 min.  (DVD)

Director: Dziga Vertov
Documents the activities of the Young Pioneers.
LITTLE VERA  1988  110 min.  (VHS) (DVD) - NEW!

Director: Vasily Pichul
Cast: Natalya Negoda
Negoda plays Vera, a sullen, sultry teenager who is torn between her brooding lover and her bitter parents in a dead-end town. 

LONELY WOMAN SEEKS LIFE COMPANION  1987   91 min.  (VHS)  
Director:  Viacheslav Krishtofovich
Cast:  Irina Kupchenko; Alexander Zbruev
In this tragicomedy, a lonely middle-aged woman posts five ads in search of a Prince Charming, but the response is far from ideal.  The film addresses alcoholism, urban alienation, divorce and women's issues.

LUNA PARK  1991  105 min.  (VHS)
Director:  Pavel Lungin
Cast:  Oleg Borisov, Andrei Goutine, Natalie Egorova
An intense tale of a man coming to terms with his past.  Andrei is the leader of a gang of right-wing skinheads determined to "clean up" Russia by beating up Jews, foreigners, and others of whom they disapprove.  When he learns his own father is actually a celebrated Jewish composer, he sets off on a frantic search through Moscow to find him.

MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA  1929  68 min.  (DVD)

Director: Dziga Vertov
Described by Dziga Vertov as an "experiment in the language of pure cinema."  In part a manifesto on the nature of socialist society, the film is actually a synthesis of shots taken in Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and elsewhere.

MAMAY  2003  80 min. (VHS)
This Oscar-nominated historical adventure is based on 2 epics: a Ukrainian duma about the three Azov brothers and the Crimean-Tartar legend about the Doblesny Mamliuks. Three kozak brothers escape from Turkish captivity and three Tartar traitors set out to capture them. With only two horses, the brothers leave the youngest behind, hoping that he willl evade capture. A Tartar girl finds him in the steppe. From this evolves the legend of Kozak Mamay.

THE MIRROR  1975  106 min.  (VHS & DVD)
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Oleg Yankovsky; Margarita Terekhova; I. Daniltsev
In this poetic autobiography images of childhood are mixed with fragments of his adult life.

MOSCOW DOES NOT BELIEVE IN TEARS  1981   150 min.  (VHS & DVD) 
Director: Vladimir Menshov
Cast: Vera Alentova, Irina Muravyova, Raisa Ryazanova
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, it is a drama of three women trying to establish themselves in Russia's huge and often impersonal capital city. 

MOSCOW PARADE  1993  103 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Ivan Dykhovichny
Cast: Ute Lemper, Natalia Kalikanova, Ekaterina Rijikova
The first post-Soviet view of the Stalin era. Set in Moscow in 1939, the film tells the story of Anna, a former aristocrat married to one of the chiefs of the secret police. 

MOTHER  Silent Film  1926  73 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin
Cast: Vera Baranovskaya, Nikolai Batalov, Vsevolod Pudovkin
Depicts an aspect of the abortive 1905 revolt, dramatizing the injustices of Tsarist life. 

MOTHER AND SON  1997  73 min.  (DVD) 
Director: Alexander Sokurov
Cast: Gudrin Geyer, Alexander Anishnov
A story about the deep affection that exists between a mother and her son.  The film explores themes of life and death in a harsh world that offers little comfort.

MURDER AT ZHDANOVSKAYA  1992  (VHS) 
Director: Sulambek Mamilov
Based on the murder of a KGB officer, the film attempts to show the conflict that existed between the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the Brezhnev era.

MY BIG ARMENIAN WEDDING  2005  205 min.  (DVD)  -  NEW

Director: Rodion Nakhapetov

Cast: Natal'ya Andrejchenko, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Rodion Nakhapetov, Marat Basharov, Mariya Shukshina, Karen Dzhanibekyan, El'vira Bolgova

There is lots of sparkle to this comedy about a love affair with a happy end. Young Armenian doctor named Tigran falls in love with Russian beauty Elena. The parents of the two are firm against the couple's intentions and decide to find better matches for their children.

MY NAME IS IVAN  1962  84 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Kolya Burlaeiv, Valentin Zubkov, Ye Zharikov
Based on the novel by Vladimir Bogomolov.  Set during WWII, this new print is the story of a young boy deprived of his childhood and struggling with the brutal realities of war.  

NIGHT WATCH 2006  114 min (DVD)
The forces of light and darkness have co-existed in a delicate balance for hundreds of years...until now. The Night Watch polices the Dark Others--vampires, witches--the usual suspects. Russia's version of the gritty, Matrix-esque horror action movie.

OBLOMOV  1981  145 min.  (VHS) (DVD)
Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Cast: P. Lebeshev; A. Popov; Oleg Tabakov; Elena Solovei; Yu. Bogatyrev
Screen version of Goncharov's novel.

OCTOBER  Silent Film:  1927 (1967 restoration)  104 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Cast: V. Nikandrov, N. Popov, E. Tisse, N. Podvoisky, B. Livanov
Eisenstein's masterful recreation of the events leading up to the Russian Revolution.

OF FREAKS AND MEN  1998  89 min.  (DVD)

Director:  Alexei Balabanov

Cast:  Sergei Makovetsky; Dinara Drukarova; Victor Sukhorukov; Lika Nevolina

The sinister Johann and his wicked assistant photograph the floggings of bare-bottomed women.  They maneuver their way into two well-to-do families, involving them in their pornographic schemes.  Darkly humorous and startlingly original, this compelling tale reveals the manipulation and revenge, hidden passions and sadomasochistic urges underlying the charm and propriety of Victorian society.

OLD WOMEN (STARUKHI)  2003  100 min.  (DVD) 

Director:  Gennady Sidorov

Cast:  Valentina Berezutskaya; Galina Smirnova; Zoya Norkina; Tamara Klimova

Old women live somewhere in an isolated and nearly forgotten village. Despite poverty surrounding them they still are alive and are not going to die.  Prize for the Best film, best debut and Prize of the Guild of Film Critics of Russia at FF "Kinotavr", Sochi-2003, Russia

OPERATION "Y" AND OTHER SHURIK  ADVENTURES  1965   96 min.  (DVD)  
Director: Leonid Gaidai
Cast: Aleksandr Demianenko, Alexei Smirnov, Mikhail Pugovkin
The lovable and bumbling Shurik finds himself in a host of incredible situations. In these three episodic sketches, Shurik tries to rehabilitate a bully, prepare for an exam and save a warehouse from burglary.

THE ORPHANS [Podrantsy]  1977  100 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Nikolai Gubenko
Cast: Yuozas Budraitis; Alyosha Tcherstvov, Nikolai Gubenko, Zhanna Bolotova
A successful novelist returns to the now abandoned orphanage, where he spent several years at the end of WWII.  His life there is remembered, and he finds his brothers who had been adopted by different families.

PAPA 2004  94 min.  (DVD) -  NEW
Director: Vladimir Mashkov
Cast: Vladimir Mashkov, Yegor Beroyev, Andrey Rozendent, Ksenja Lavrova-Glinka
Set in the thirties, a talented young violinist comes to Moscow where he meets love and enjoys success. But all the time he hides the fact that he is Jewish. He must choose to renounce his father or lose everything. Based on the play.

PASSIONS [UVLECHEN'IA]  1994  112 min.  (DVD)  
Director: Kira Muratova
Cast: Renata Litvinova, Svetlana Kolenda, Mikhail Demidov, Vasilii Rybakin, Aleksei Shevchenko
Blond Liliia and brunette Violetta are attracted to horse-racing.  The young jockeys fall for the girls.  Sports intrigues are interwoven with love affairs.  The racehorses carry their riders to the finish line, where the winner takes all.
THE PATRIOTS  1934  82 min.  (VHS)   
Director: Boris Barnet
Cast: Yelena Kuzmina, Nikolai Bogolyubov, Nikolai Kryuchov
Blends comic, ironic, and tragic elements to evoke the divided loyalties of the inhabitants of a small Russian town during World War I.

PECULIARITIES OF NATIONAL FISHING [OSOBENNOSTI NATIONAL'NOI RYBALKI]  1998   94 min.  (DVD)  
Director: Aleksandr Rogozhkin
Cast: Aleksei Buldakov, Viktor Bychkov, Semen Strugachev, Sergei Russkin, Sergei Gusinskii, Vasilii Domrachev, Ville Khaapsalo
The sequel to the epic comedy Pecularities of the National Hunt, this film also explores the peculiarities of the mysterious Russian soul.  The inseparable friends General Ivolgin, the hunter Kuzmich, and Leva Soloveichik decide to go fishing.but their boat goes off course and carries the unfortunate fishermen straight to Finland.
PRISONER OF THE CAUCASUS, OR SHURIK'S NEW ADVENTURES  1971  (DVD) 

Director:  Leonid Gaidai

Cast:  Aleksandr Demyanenko; Natalya Varley; Yuri Nikulin

Shurik travels to Caucasus in search of native legends and folklore.  But what he finds is a beautiful girl whom, due to intoxication and deceit of the local "gang", he ends up literally stealing for the local deceitful governor.  All the time Shurik thinks that it is all just an old Caucasian custom.  When he, finally, realizes what he did he goes out in search for the girl of his dreams.

PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAINS  1996  99 min.  (VHS)
Director:  Sergei Bodrov
Cast:  Oleg Menshikov, Sergei Bodrov, Jr., Djemal Sikarulidze
Based on Leo Tolstoy's classic tale of hope, courage, and humanity, this film follows the spellbinding journey of two Russians held captive in the Caucasus mountains. Winner of the 1996 Cannes Critics Prize.

PRIVATE LIFE  1982  103 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Yuli Raizman
Cast: M. Ulyanov; Iya Savvina; I. Gubanova; T. Dogileva
Deals with the trial of retirement and old age with sensitivity.

PROMISED HEAVENS  1991  118 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Eldar Ryazanov
Cast: L. Akhedzhakova; O. Volkova;  V. Gaft; L. Bronevoi
A group of Russians separate themselves from mainstream society in order to form their own system of rule.  These outcasts treasure their freedom until tanks roll over their self-made village.
QUIET FLOWS THE DON  (TIKHIY DON) 1957  360 min.  (DVD-4 DISKS) 
Director: Sergei Gerasimov
Cast: Pyotr Glebov; Elina Bystritskaya
Six hour epic about the life of Don Cossacs in a village in southern Russia between 1912 and 1922.  Winner of numerous awards.

RASPUTIN  1977  104 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Elem Klimov
Cast: Alexei Petrenko; Anatoli Romashin; Welta Leene
Petrenko delivers a ferociously over-the-top performance as Grigory Rasputin, the wandering Siberian monk whose messianic influence upon Russia's monarchy helped lead the country to World War I and the revolution. The film is an unrestrained assault on the ruling class.

THE ROAD TO LIFE  1931  100 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Nikolai Ekk
Cast: Nikolai Balatov, Mikhail Zharov
The Children's Commission attempts to reform orphaned youths after the Revolutionary and Civil wars. One of the first Russian sound films. Based on the book 'Pedagogical Poem' by Soviet educator Anton Makarenko.

RUSLAN AND LIUDMILA  154 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Aleksandr Ptushko
Cast: V. Kozinets; N. Petrova; A. Abrikosov; V. Nevinnyi
An adaptation of Pushkin's work.  (Some problems with tape.)

RUSSIAN ARK  2002  96 min.  (DVD)

Director:  Alexander Sokurov Cast:  Sergei Dreiden; Maria Kuznetsova; Leonid Mozgovoy A modern filmmaker who magically finds himself transported to the 18th century.  There, he embarks on a time-traveling journey through 300 years of Russian history.  Filmed with a cast of thousands, three live orchestras and an army of technicians, Russian Ark is the longest uninterrupted shot in film history, an the first feature film ever created in a single take.

THE SEAGULL  1971  99 min.  (VHS)   
Director: Yuri Karasik 
Cast:  Alla Demidova, Lyudmila Savelyeva, Yuri Yakovlev. 
A sensitive, exquisitely acted version of Chekhov's great play, set in provincial Russia, a penetrating study of the languid melancholia of the residents of an isolated country estate. 
THE SECOND CIRCLE 1990  85 min. Restored Director's cut (DVD) - NEW!  
Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Cast:  Pyotr Aleksandrov, Nadezhda Rodnova, Tamara Timofeyeva, and Aleksandr Bystryakov. 

In a remote Siberian village, A man tries to come to terms with his father's death and to deal with the mundane details of his burial in a society cut off from spirituality. From the director of "The Russian Ark."
THE SEVENTEEN MOMENTS OF SPRING 1973  60 min. per disk/360 min. total. DVD - 6 disks. Two episodes on each disk. -NEW!
Director: Tatiana Lioznova
Cast: Vyacheslav Tikhonov; Leonid Bronevoy; Yevgeni Yevstigneyev
The series is based on a true story of a Russian spy Colonel Isaev (Stirlitz) in Fascist Germany during 17 days in very end of WWII.

SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS  1964  99 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Sergei Parajanov
Cast: Ivan Mikolaichuk; Larisa  Kadochnikova; Tatiana Bestaeva
Visually rich panorama using song, dance, and ritual to tell the story of a Romeo and Juliet of the Carpathians.

SIBERIADE  1979  190 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Andrei Konchalovsky
Cast: Vladimir Samoilov, Vitaly Solomin, Nikita Mikhalkov, Lyudmilla Gurchenko
Russian history over six decades is revealed through the eyes of two opposing families in this epic film. One proletarian family,the Ustyuzhanins, yearns for change, while the aristocratic Solomins desperately cling to their privileged past. These opposing views finally climax in a battle over oil in Siberia. Winner of the 1979 Jury Prize at Cannes. 

SIDEBURNS  1990  110 min.  (VHS)
Director: Yuri Mamin
In this satire the young Russian rightists called "The Pushkin Club" are pitted against an anti-establishment rock group.

SLAVE OF LOVE  1976  94 min.  (VHS)
Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Cast: E. Solovei; R. Nakhapetov; A. Kaliagin  Music: Eduard Artemiev
Depicts the pre-Revolutionary film industry and shows how a self-centered actress is drawn into the turmoil of the Revolution through her love for the cameraman, who is a Red.

SNOW MAIDEN (Snyegurochka)  1968  93 min.  (DVD) 

Director:  Pavel Kadochnikov

Cast:  Yevgeniya Filonova; Yevgeny Zharikov; Irina Gubanova

Snow Maiden is a daughter of Father Frost and Beauty Spring.  Her ice heart had never known simple human feelings - joy, love.  Not until she has met a man named Lel.  His love and wormth give her the richness of the world around her and kindle her heart of cold beauty.  Spiritual images of nature, cheerful dances, folk games, songs- all these components are included in this fairy tale.

SOLARIS  1972  169 min.  (DVD)
Director:  Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast:  Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Yuri Yarvet
When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to investigate the Solaris space station, he experiences strange phenomena sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his own consciousness.

STALKER  1979  163 min.  (DVD) 

Director:  Andrei Tarkovsky

Cast:  Alexander Kaidanovsky; Alissa Freindlikh; Anatoly Solonitsyn; Nikolai Grinko

Stalker is  the man who knows a lot about the system of obstacles and traps in the Zone.  He knows the way to the coveted room where any wish may come true.  To find this room is the goal of Writer and Professor.  The writer hopes to find inspiration there, the professor dreams of making a discovery.  Led by the Stalker, they finally reach the room... But will they be able to enter it?  What will the path of self-knowledge lead to?

THE STAR  2002  93 min.  (DVD)  -  NEW

Director: Nikolaj Lebedev

Cast: Aleksej Kravchenko, Aleksej Panin, Igor Petrenko, Artem Samokin, Amadu Mamadakov, Anatolij Gucshin

The Second World War in Russia. The year 1944. The "Star" is a radio call sign for a group of war scouts who went on an assignment behind the German front line. Having found the location of German tank concentration, they report to the headquarters, at the cost of their lives, about the impending attack.  Intense and dramatic, the film makes one realize who had won in that war, and at what price.
The movie's superb directing, stunning cinematography and poignant, sensuous music immerse the viewer in the atmosphere of war, when just one erroneous step may lead to fatal consequences.
Based on the story by Emmanuil Kazakevich.

STORM OVER ASIA  Silent Film:  1928   128 min.  (VHS)
Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin
Cast: Valeri Inkizhinov, I. Inkizhinov, A. Chistiakov, Boris Barnet, Anel' Sudakevich, Alexander Chistiakov
Famous for its lyrical/psychological montage, this film tells an epic story of an exploited Mongolian fur trader who becomes involved in the Mongolian uprising against the British during the Civil War period.  Script by Osip Brik.

STRIKE  (STACHKA)  Silent Film:  1925  94 min.  (DVD) 
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Triggered by the suicide of a worker unjustly accused of theft, a strike is called by the laborers of a Moscow factory. The managers, owner and the Czarist government dispatch infiltrators in an attempt to break the workers' unity.  Eisenstein experimented with the use of montage, parallel editing, expanded time, and the intercutting of symbolic images - the beginnings of the techniques that would change the look of cinema.  This film is considered by many to be Eisenstein's masterpiece.

A SUMMER TO REMEMBER [Seriozha]  1960  78 min.  (VHS)     
Directors: Georgi Daniela and Igor Talankin
Cast: Sergey Bondarchuk, Irina Skobtseva
Based on short story by Soviet writer Vera Panova. A small, intimate portrait that recounts the adolescence of a young boy growing up in southern Russia.

TAXI BLUES  1990  110 min.  (VHS)
Director: Pavel Lungin
Cast: Piotr Mamonov, Piotr Zaitchenko, Elena Saphonova
The story centers on a hard-working, patriotic taxi driver who starts to go over the edge when he meets a flaky, westernized, Jewish jazz musician who represents everything the taxi driver despises...and secretly desires.

TCHAIKOVSKY  1971  153 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Igor Talankin
Musical Adaptation: Dimitri Tiomkin
Cast: Innokenti Smoktunovsky, Antonina Shuranova
A film about the music and life of the celebrated composer.  Nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film.

THEY FOUGHT FOR THEIR MOTHERLAND  1975  131 min.  (DVD) - NEW

Director:  S. Bondarchuk

Based on the novel by M.A. Sholokhov. July 1942: The army is retreating. A group of exhausted soldiers, all that is left of their regiment, are defending a plot of land. At times they feel like there is no war. Wide tank tracks on the road, and all around are drooping, wilted grasses, dimly glistening salt marshes and a bluish flickering haze over distant mounds...In that absurd clash between the warmly breathing earth and the inhuman war machine lies a powerful Biblical generalization, the metaphor of confrontation of eternal life and dark, evil forces.

THE THIEF  1997  93 min.   (VHS)  
Director: Pavel Chukhrai
Cast:  Vladimir Mashkov, Ekaterina Rednikova, Misha Philipchuk
A young boy and his homeless mother are "rescued" by a handsome, charismatic soldier.  Winner of several international film prizes and nominee for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, this film is arresting as both an intense drama about a troubling family dynamic, and as an allegory about the tension that filled the Soviet Union in the early years of the Cold War. 

THREE SONGS OF LENIN  1934  62 min.  (VHS & DVD*) 
Director: Dziga Vertov
Reveals the Russian leader as soon through the eyes of the Russian people -- represented by three songs.  One concerns the life of a young Muslim woman, one with the life and death of Lenin, and one shows the accomplishments of his rules.  The last feature film from a great visual artist.  * For DVD please see Kino-Eye.

THROUGH FIRE, WATER AND... BRASS PIPES  1968  86 min.  (DVD) 
Director: Alexander Rou
Cast: Natalya Sedykh, Alexei Katyshev, Georgy Millyar
The saying "to go through fire, water and brass pipes" means to endure severe trials, to gain many impressions and to steel one's will. This film, based on a fairy tale, is a musical of a boy's search for his beloved, who is kidnapped by immortal beings.

THE TSAR'S BRIDE  1966  97 min.  (VHS)
Director: Vladimir Gorikker 
Cast: Raissa Nedashkovskaya, Natalya Rudnaya, Otar Koberidze, Pyotr Glebov 
A cinematic production of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera using the actors and singers of the Bolshoi Opera and Theater.  It tells the story of a beautiful young girl who is chosen ­ against her will ­ by Tsar Ivan the Terrible to be his wife. 

TWENTY-SIX DAYS IN THE LIFE OF FEDOR DOSTOEVSKY  1980  80 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Alexander Zarkhi
Cast: Anatolii Solonitsyn; Evgenia Simonova; Ewa Shikulska
The late Anatoli Solonitsyn, plays Fedor Mikhailovich --  45 years old, widowed, heavily in debt, deeply depressed, suffering writer's block. And stage actress Evgenia Simonova plays the 18-year-old fledgling stenographer, Ania Snitkina, seeking her first employment after secretarial school.  Veteran writer-director Zarkhi weaves a very believable, touching "docu-drama" around the lives, personalities, and problems faced by these two real people at a critical moment in the writer's life, around the time he was trying to finish both "Gambler" and "Crime and Punishment."

TYCOON, A NEW RUSSIAN  2002  128 min.  (DVD) 

Director: Pavel Lungin

Cast: Vladimir Mashkov, Andrei Krasko, Maria Mironova, Sergei Oshkevich

A stylish, slick crime drama based on the life of notorious billionaire Boris Berezovsky, Tycoon follows the life of Plato Makovski, a renegade Russian entrepreneur whose seductive and brutal climb to the top in the post-Soviet era flourishes as the line between business, crime and politics breaks down.

UNFINISHED PIECE FOR PLAYER PIANO  1977  100 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Cast: A. Kaliagin; E. Solovei; A. Shuranova  Music: Eduard Artemiev
Based on Chekhov's play "Platonov."  Captures well the spirit of Chekhov.

THE VERY MUNCHAUSEN  1979  134 min.  (DVD)  - NEW
Director: Mark Zakharov
"A comic fantasy of life, love and death of infamous Baron Munhgauzen who used to live in XVIII century and who's featured in many amusing books and legends". The film is not a screen version of the famous novel of R. E. Raspe but an absolutely original work of art created by our talented contemporaries.

VIVA CASTRO!  1993  82 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Boris Frumin  
Cast: Pavel Zharkov, Julia Sobolevskaya, Sergei Dontsov
Set in a small Russian town in 1965, when Fidel Castro was a popular cultural figure, this film looks at Russia's disaffected youth.  

VIY or SPIRIT OF EVIL  1967  78 min.  (DVD)
Directors:  Konstantin Yershov & Georgy Kropachyov
Cast:  Leonid Kuralyov, Natalya Yarley, Alexei Glazyrin
Based on the story by Nikolai Gogol.  Theology student, Thomas Brutus, meets Viy, the devil's emissary, one night under some mysterious circumstances and enters a world where reality is interspersed with fantasy.
VODKA LEMON   2003  88 min.  (DVD)  -  NEW

Director: Hiner Saleem

Cast: Romen Avinian, Layla Sarkissian, Ivan Franek, Zahal Karielachvili, Rouzanna-Vite Mesropian

Winner of the Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, "Vodka Lemon" is a bittersweet concoction with a kick. In the snowy badlands of post-Soviet Armenia, village life is nearing subsistence level...Forced to sell off possessions while awaiting money from his son, Hamo, a former Red Army officer, can only count on one thing: daily trips to the cemetary to commune with his late wife. There, Nina, a beautiful widow, tends her husband's grave. On the bus back to the village, a tender romance blossoms.

VOLGA VOLGA  1937  90 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Grigori Alexandrov 
Cast: Lyubov Orlova, Igor Ilinsky, V. Bolodin 
This film is as popular and familiar to Russian audiences as 'Showboat' is to American audiences.  Setting is a giant steamboat making its way up the Volga River.  On board is a motley collection of amateur singers and dancers traveling to Moscow to participate in a musical contest. 

VOVOCHKA  2002  95 min.  (DVD) 

Director:  I. Muzhzhukhin

Cast:  A. Guskov; V. Novikova; I. Ulyanova; M. Porechenkov

This light, hilarious story, sparkling with good-natured humour, will amuse both children and their parents. Our Vovochka is not the hero of popular anecdotes, but a real-life ten-year-old boy, spontaneous and indefatigable, an ever-inventive daredevil, who happens to be quite a handful for the grown-ups around him.

WAR (VOINA)  2002  120 min.  (DVD)  
Director: Alexei Balabanov
Cast: Alexei Chadov, Ian Kelli, Sergei Bodrov, Ingebora Dapkunaite
A British man and Russian soldier must rely on their own skills to save a another British tourist from Chechen rebels.

WAR AND PEACE  1965-1967  403 min. (DVD) 

Director:  Sergei Bondarchuk

Cast:  Liudmila Savelieva; Sergei Bondarchuk; Vyacheslav Tikhonov; Anastasiya Vertinskaya

Screen Adaptation of the novel by Leo Tolstoy   
WHITE SUN OF THE DESERT  1969  80 min. (DVD) -NEW!
Director:  Vladimir Motyl
Cast:  Anatoli Kuznetsov; Spartak Mishulin; Kakhi Kavsadze
"A soldier of the Red Army named Sukhov has been fighting in the Russian Civil War in Russian Asia for many years. Just as he is about to return home to his wife, Sukhov is chosen to guard and protect the harem of a guerilla leader." (description from IMDB.com)

WILD/SHY BOY  1988  85 min.  (VHS)
Director: Kamara Kamalova
Cast: R. Safiulin; A. Smirdan; S. Atayeva; V. Shadiyev; Ye. Nikitishinina
Forrest S. Ciesol writes that the drama "gracefully captures the awkwardness of adolescence and the challenges of coming of age in the Stalin era of the 1940s. Kamalova is less concerned with constructing a traditional linear narrative than with carefully observing details and  incidents which shape the lives of her characters."

WILD HUNT OF KING STAKH  (VHS) 
Director: Valeri Rubinchik
Cast: B. Plotnikov; E. Dimitrova
A "horror" film based on a story by V. Korotkevich.  Images poor.

WINDOW TO PARIS  1995  92 min.  (VHS)   
Director: Yuri Mamin   Cast: Agnes Soral, Serguei Dontsov    
An inventive comedy that alternates romance with slapstick -- the story of a young musician who discovers a magic window that takes him from his rundown Russian apartment to the streets of Paris.

WINGS  1966  90 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Larisa Shepitko
Cast: Maya Bulgakova, Galina Yatskina
Character portrait of a female fighter pilot and ardent Stalinist who cannot adjust to peacetime life following the Second World War. Considered Shepitko's most controversial film.

ZVENIGORA  Silent Film:  1927  73 min.  (VHS)   
Director: Alexander Dovzhenko
Cast: Semen Svashenko, Peter Masokha
Ukrainian director Dovzhenko's first major work captures the history of Ukraine through a series of folk myths stretching from the Viking invasion to the 1919 Civil War.

100 DAYS AFTER CHILDHOOD  (VHS) 
Director:  O. Grigorovich
Cast:  Boris Tokarev, Tatiana Drubich, Irina Madysheva

GEORGIAN/ARMENIAN:

ASHIK KERIB  1988  75 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Sergei Paradjanov
Cast: Yuri Goyan, Veronika Metonidze, Levan Natroshvilli
Ashik Kerib is a wandering minstrel, forbidden to marry the daughter of a powerful merchant, who travels for one thousand days to finance his wedding. In Paradjanov's hands, it becomes a visual opera of costumes, movement and music, in which surreal framing, icons, pomegranates and other mystical symbols fill a living tableau with images that are simply miraculous.

BLOCK MELODY (MELODIES OF THE VERI NEIGHBORHOOD)  No subtitles, Georgian:  1973  (VHS)  
Director: Georgii Shengelaia
Cast: Sofiko Chiaureli; Buba Kikabidze
A musical with weak dramatic structure, but a bright carnival-like setting. A colorful attempt to translate a Hollywood type musical to a Georgian period setting.

A CHEF IN LOVE  In French, Georgian, and Russian:  1996  95 min.  (VHS)
Director: Nana Djordjadze   
Cast: Pierre Richard
A richly textured story of a free-spirited French chef whose restaurant and extraordinary love affair are both endangered by the Russian revolution. Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Picture.

RED POMEGRANATE  Armenian:  1969  75 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Sergei Paradjanov
Cast: Sofiko Chiaureli, M. Aleksanian
Based on the writings of the 17th century Armenian poet, Arutiuin Sayadian, also known as "Sayat Nova", this is both a stylized biography of the man and a tribute to his works.

REPENTANCE  Georgian  1988  151 min.  (VHS)
Director: Tengiz Abuladze
Cast: Avtandil Makharadze, Zeinab Botsvadze
In a small, somewhat surreal Russian village, a mysterious woman is put on trial for repeatedly digging up the body of Varlam, the town's recently deceased ruler. A searing expose of the brutal repressions and heroic sacrifices during the Stalinist era, this film was nominated for a Golden Globe award.

VODKA LEMON Armenian 2003 88 min. (DVD)

Director: Hiner Saleem

Cast: Romen Avinian, Layla Sarkissian, Ivan Franek, Zahal Karielachvili, Rouzanna-Vite Mesropian

Winner of the Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, "Vodka Lemon" is a bittersweet concoction with a kick. In the snowy badlands of post-Soviet Armenia , village life is nearing subsistence level...Forced to sell off possessions while awaiting money from his son, Hamo, a former Red Army officer, can only count on one thing: daily trips to the cemetery to commune with his late wife. There, Nina, a beautiful widow, tends her husband's grave. On the bus back to the village, a tender romance blossoms.

CENTRAL ASIAN:

BESHKEMPIR, THE ADOPTED SON  Kyrgyz:  1998  81 min.  (VHS)   
Director: Aktan Abdykalykov
The first independent feature made in Kyrgyzstan, this film follows a boy who is living through a typical childhood ... until he discovers, one day, that he is adopted.

KIEP'S LAST JOURNEY  Uzbek:  1990   95 min.  (VHS)
Director:  Farid Davletshin
Cast: A. Kuttubaev, D. Kambarova, S. Moldakhanov, P. Saidkasimov, N. Khanturin
Forrest Ciesol writes that the film is "a startlingly modern, revisionist folk tale that is unsentimental and offers no easy or simple resolution.  The structuring of many flashbacks and dream sequences is engagingly sophisticated. The film offers a rare and fascinating revelation of centuries-old Uzbek beliefs and customs."

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RUSSIAN FILMS WITHOUT SUBTITLES

THE ADVENTURES OF BURATINO  1975  134 min.  (DVD) 

Director: Leonid Nechaev

Cast: Yurij Katin-Yartsev, Rolan Bykov, Nikolaj Grin'ko, Vladimir Etush, Valdimir Basov, Rina Zelenaya, Dmitrij Iosifov

"The Adventures of Buratino and the Golden Key" was A. Tolstoy's re-telling of the classic story of Pinocchio. A wooden boy Buratino tries to find his place in life. He befriends toys from a toy theater owned by evil Karabas-Barabas, gets tricked by Alice the Fox and Basilio the Cat and finally discovers the mystery of a golden key given to him by kind Tortila the Tortoise.

THE ASCENT  (VOSKHOZHDEHIE)  1976  105 min.  (VHS)
Director:  Larisa Shepitko
Cast:  Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Sergei Yakovlev, Lyudmila Polyakova
Two partisans resisting German incursions into Belorussia during World War II, are captured and sentenced to die. One of them dies with such overwhelming dignity and grace, that no one present is unmoved. The Ascent, which won the Grand Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1977, was the last complete film by Shepitko.

BROTHER  (BRAT)  1997  96 min.  (VHS)
Director: Alexei Balabanov
Cast: Sergei Bodrov Jr., Victor Sukhorukov, Svetlana Pismichenko, Maria Zhukova, Yury Kuznetsov
A man returns from his army service to St. Petersburg, where he finds his brother is now a contract killer for the Russian mob. Soon, both brothers are in the service of organized crime and team up to kill a Chechen mafia boss. This crime film addresses the social breakdown and accepted grimness of city life in the former Soviet Union. Bodrov's performance won him the Best Actor award at the 1997 Chicago International Film Festival.

BROTHER 2 (BRAT 2)  2000  125 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Aleksei Balabanov
Cast: Sergei Bodrov, Viktor Sukhorukov, Irina Saltykova, Aleksandr D'iachenko, Kirill Pirogov, Sergei Makovetskii, Dar'ia Lesnikova
In this sequel, when Danila Bagrov's army friend from the war in Chechnya is killed, Danila knows that it is connected to his friend's brother, a professional hockey-player in America.  Danila sets off to sort things out, traveling from Moscow to New York to Chicago, and gets involved with the Russian and American mafias along the way.

CANCAN IN AN ENGLISH PARK (KANKAN V ANGLIISKOM PARKE)  1984  (VHS)
Director: V. Podpalogo
Cast: Timofei Spivak, G. Strizhenov, E. Kanaeva
Based on the novel, Gor'kii dym, by Rostislav Sambuk.  A KGB agent, posing as an emigre Ukrainian poet, applies to work at Radio Liberty. Scathing attack on older generation of emigres as well as new emigres, who are presented as petty criminals.

DEJA VU  (DEZHA VIU)  In Polish and Russian:  1988  106 min.  (VHS))    
Director:  Juliusz Machulski
Cast:  Galina Petrova, Nikolai Karachentsov, Vladimir Golovin, Oleg Shlovskii, Jerzy Stuhr
A comedy that moves between Chicago and Odessa in 1925. A Windy-City hitman is sent to Odessa to kill a mob informant. The victim-to-be is an enterprising soul, taking full advantage of a newly opened shipping line serving Chicago, Odessa and Constantinople. He jealously guards his smuggling operation by hiring his own hitman. Hilarious!

DRAMA AT THE HUNT (DRAMA NA OKHOTE)  (VHS)  
Director: Emil Lotianu
Cast: Oleg Iankovski, Galina Beliaeva
Based on Chekhov's "Drama at the Hunt."  Language is clear.

FAREWELL (PROSHCHANIE)  Parts 1 & 2:  1983  (VHS) 
Directors: Larisa Shepitko and Elem Klimov
Based on the novel, Farewell to Matyora, by Valentin Rasputin.

FIRST ON THE MOON (PERVYE NA LUNE) (DVD PAL only; PAL player available in REEEC office) - NEW
Director: Aleksey Fedortschenko
Russian mock documentary about landing on the moon. Spring 1938. The film details the main stages of an ambitious space programme launched in the 1930s, whose goal was... the Moon. The succession of archive footage and contemporary interviews reveals a forgotten chapter in history. Pervye na lune is more than just a delightful hoax; it is also an ironic tribute to Soviet montage films and a balanced look at the process of producing heroes.

THE FOUNTAIN (FONTAN)  1988  104 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Iurii Mamin
Cast: Asankul Kuttubaev, Sergei Dontsov, Zhanna Kermitaeva, Viktor Mikhailov, Aleksei Zalivalov, Nina Usatova, Anatolii Kalmykov
This film is a satirical comedy about the residents of an apartment building and its slow-witted, but kind, alcoholic housing officials.

GARAGE (GARAZH)  1980  (VHS)  
Director: Eldar Riazanov
Cast: Iya Savvina, S. Nemelayeva, G. Burkov
Satirical comedy dealing with "meshchanstvo."

THE GOLDEN CALF (ZOLOTOI TELENOK)  1968  167 min.  (VHS)  
Director: S. Mil'kina
Cast: Sergei Iurskii, Leonid Kuravlev, Zinovii Gerdt, Evgenii Evstigneev, Svetlana Starikova, Nikolai Boiarskii
Based on the novel by Il'ia Il'f and Evgenii Petrov, with screenplay and production by Mikhail Shveitser.  A crook named Ostap Bender schemes to extort money from an underground millionaire.

THE HAT (SHAPKA)  1990/91  85 min.  (VHS)  
Director: V. Vengerov
Cast: Vladimir Il'in; Lidiia Fedoseeva-Shukshina; Evgenii Evstigneev; Oleg Efremov
A comedy based on The Hat by Vladimir Voinovich.

HEART OF A DOG (SOBACH'E SERDTSE)  1988  131 min.  (VHS)
Director: V. Bortko                  
Cast: Evgeni Evstigneev, Roman Kartsev, Nina Ruslanova
A satire about a surgeon who implants a heart and brain of a human into a dog.  The dog eventually transforms into a human, becomes associated with the local Party officialdom, and begins to terrorize the professor. The movie is based on the 1925 story by Mikhail Bulgakov which was very hard to find in Russia up until perestroika.

HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (SOBAKA BASKERVILEI)  1981  147 min.  (Video Compact Disc) 

Director: Igor Maslennikov
Cast: V. Livanov, V. Solomin, R. Zelenaia, N. Mikhalkov
Russian version of Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles."

IAROSLAV THE WISE (IAROSLAV MUDRYI)  1982  (VHS)   
Director: Grigori Kokhar
Cast: Iu. Mkhravitskii, P. Vel'iaminov, L. Smorodina
Historical film of Kievan Rus'.   Image is shrunk. With Arabic subtitles.

THE IDIOT  1958  116 min.  (VHS)

Director:  I. Piryev

Cast:  Y. Yakovlev; Y. Borisova; N. Podgorny; P. Parkhomenko

A screen version of the first part of Dostoevsky's novel ("Nastasya Filippovna"). The actors' perfect performance, first of all that of Yulia Borisova and Yury Yakovlev, young theatre and cinema "stars' at the moment of the film shooting, reproduces the slightest nuances of the psychologically complicated literary work with an intense dramatic design.

IRONY OF FATE OR HAVE A GOOD SAUNA  Parts 1 & 2:  1975  185 min.  (VHS) 
Director: Eldar Riazanov
Cast: Andrei Miagkov, Babara Brylska, Iurii Iakovlev
A staple of Russian New Year's Eve broadcasts, this made-for-television feature ranks as one of the most popular comedies made in the former Soviet Union. A drunken New Year's gathering leaves a man in the wrong apartment in the wrong city, although the nearly identical surroundings make him think otherwise for a while. A run-in with the apartment's true resident leads to comical confrontations and unexpected romance.

JULY RAIN (IIUL'SKII DOZHD')  1966  104 min.  (VHS)   
Director: Marlen Khutsiev
Cast: Evgeniia Uralova, Aleksandr Beliavskii, Zinovii Gerdt, Iurii Vizbor, Evgeniia Kozyreva, Aleksandr Mitta
A romantic New Wave affair in which a love story is flanked by documentary street sequences, Khutsiev creates an engaging portrait of mid-1960's Moscow youth. Popular singer-songwriter Yuri Vizbor plays one of the main parts as his sad and fanciful folk songs, as well as those by Bulat Okudzhava, provide the film's soundtrack.

KHRUSTALEV, MY CAR! (KHRUSTALEV, MASHINU!)  1998  140 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Aleksei German
Cast: Iurii Tsurilo, Nina Ruslanova, Iurii Iarvet, Aleksandr Bashirov, Misha Dement'ev
On the last winter night of 1953 in Moscow, Fedia Aramyshev is tempted on his way to work by the shiny hood ornament of an empty, snow-covered Opel parked on the roadside.  Little did Fedia know that his thoughtless action would land him in the middle of an alleged "doctor's plot," the operations of the KGB, and high politics.

KOKTEBEL  2003  100 min.  (DVD)  -  NEW

Director: Aleksej Popogrebskij, Boris Khlebnikov

Cast: Aleksandr Il'in, Igor Chernevich, Agrippina Steklova, Vladimir Kucherenko, Evginij Sytyj, Gleb Puskepalis

This film is a Drama,  It is in PAL format.  It needs a universal DVD player to play.

THE MUSLIM (MUSUL'MANIN)  1995  110 min.  (VHS)  
Director: Vladimir Khotinenko
Cast: Y. Mironov, N. Uzatova, A. Baluyev, Y. Germanova
A Russian soldier who spent ten years in Afghanistan, returns to his home village where he shocks all its inhabitants because of his conversion to Islam.  The hero turns out to be the only sober and hard-working member of the community.  However, his attachment to his new faith soon provokes the hatred and rejection of everyone in the village, including his own family.

MY NAME IS MITAR  (VHS)
Director: Vida Ognjenovic

NIGHT PATROL  (VHS) 
This video has several programs on it: Concert of the Prague Orchestra; Good Night, Little Ones; The Lion Cub and the Turtle (cartoon);.Night Patrol 

THE PASSPORT  1991  (VHS) 
Director: G. Danelia
Cast: G. Darmon, O. Yankovsky
A tragicomic adven