Classics by masters from Eisenstein to Tarkovsky; little-seen genre gems; fabulously kitschy relics of the Soviet era-all are part of the panorama of Russian cinema presented in this eclectic survey.
Read full descriptionAleksandr Sokurov's deeply felt tribute to a remarkable musical partnership: cellist-conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya.
Sokurov stuns the senses, depicting humanity at its fiercest and finest, personified by the titular grandmother journeying through wartorn Chechnya. Galina Vishnevskaya stars.
Judith Rosenberg on Piano. What happens when a slacker is invited to join a farming collective? “A dark and funny assault on peasant-class pieties.”-N.Y. Sun
“Eye-popping amalgamation of country comedy, musical romance, and science fiction. . . . Alexandr Medvedkin shocks through the sheer audacity of his project.”-Richard Peña
Mikhail Romm's vintage Cold War film about a pro-Moscow American journalist is enlivened by its humanity, and a score by Aram Khachaturian.
The most poetic and inventive of Russian directors, Andrei Tarkovsky, sketches his youth through dream images of a young boy who is hypnotized in a clinic.
Judith Rosenberg on Piano. With its humor and naturalism, Avram Room's intimate drama dealing with a ménage à trois brought about by a housing shortage appears modern even today.
Judith Rosenberg on Piano. Sholem Aleichem's classic is brought to the screen in an extraordinary meeting of Russian-Jewish talent.
Konchalovsky's adaptation of Chekhov's play, “a comedy that moves to the cadences of tragedy.”-Albert Johnson
Mikhail Kalatozov's stunningly visualized drama of young love and ambition destroyed by war, a key work of the post-Stalin era.
Also by Kalatozov, “the most profound examination of man against nature ever filmed. It took a Russian to do it well.”-Dennis Jakob
This musical prototype for the girl-boy-tractor romances “begins as a deceptively easygoing trifle, by the end becoming a reminder that with World War II in sight, tanks would soon replace tractors.”-N.Y. Sun
This deliciously witty 1956 comedy showed that, even in Stalin's Russia, kids just want to rock 'n' roll.
Sinbad's voyage is transformed by one of the great poets of fantasy filmmaking, Alexander Ptushko.
Judith Rosenberg on Piano. Sergei Eisenstein's classic can be appreciated for “not only the perfection of its form, but the humanitarianism and enthusiasm that impregnated its revolutionary subject.”-Georges Sadoul
In Larissa's Shepitko's masterpiece, the partisan struggle against the Nazis in WWII provides the setting for a tale of morality and martyrdom. “A profoundly moving experience.”-Filmex '78