FILMS
- Scarecrow
Amidst the desolation of the Russian steppes, a lonely little boy finds a friend in a scarecrow. The simple story and haunting ambient sound are stunning. more...
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- Alexander Kott
- Russia
- 1999
- The Scorpion’s Gardens
This fascinating film presents a wide range of footage from the ’20s through the ’50s newly retrieved from Soviet archives: never-before seen images of the Korean War and the invasion of Hungary a more...
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- Oleg Kovalov
- Russia
- 1991
- The Shattered Mirror
In January 1992 Marina Goldovskaya (Solovki Power, SFIFF 1989) revisited her hometown of Moscow to witness firsthand the sweeping changes taking place in her country. The Shattered Mirrormore...
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- Marina Goldovskaya
- Russia
- 1992
- Silent Souls
The rites and rituals of the Merja people—an ethnic minority of Finno-Urgric extraction originally from the Volga region of Russia—form the backbone of this lyrical, sensual and dreamlike film abo more...
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- Aleksei Fedorchenko
- Russia
- 2010
- Sisters
Set in St. Petersburg, this breathlessly paced, beautifully proportioned action thriller focuses on two fiercely different half-sisters who share a beautiful but shallow mother. Serious Sveta, 13, liv more...
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- Sergei Bodrov Jr.
- Russia
- 2001
- The Student
Wielding his worn copy of the Bible like a hammer, a teenage religious zealot emerges abruptly in the opening passages of Kirill Serebrennikov's The Student. The camera introduces Ven more...
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- Kirill Serebrennikov
- Russia
- 2016
- Suleiman Mountain
Without preamble, a young Kyrgyz boy is taken out of an orphanage and into the lives of his supposed parents who make ends meet by running various cons on unsuspecting villagers. Director Stishova wea more...
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- Elizaveta Stishova
- Kyrgyzstan/Russia
- 2017
- The Summer of Frozen Fountains
People fall in and out of love in this delightfully wistful romantic drama. A man suspects that his wife is having an affair when he discovers a gold necklace under their bed. A veteran photographer t more...
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- Vano Burduli
- Georgia/Russia
- 2015
- The Sun
The war is over. Much of Japan is a smoking ruin. As U.S. forces roll into a flattened Tokyo, Emperor Hirohito—considered by the Japanese to be a divine being, a descendant of the Sun God—putters more...
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- Alexander Sokurov
- Russia / Italy / France / Switzerland
- 2005
- Target
Audacious director Alexander Zeldovich and cult writer Vladimir Sorokin present a visionary look at a near-future ultra-capitalist Russia. In 2020, Russia’s proximity to and exploitative alliance wi more...
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- Alexander Zeldovich
- Russia/Germany
- 2010
- The Fourth Dimension
Created under a “manifesto” whose directives would make Lars von Trier shudder, this three-part film might look on paper like an exercise in forced hipness. Fortunately, its directors—Harmony Ko more...
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- Harmony Korine, Aleksei Fedorchenko, Jan Kwiecinski
- USA/Russia, Poland
- 2012
- Traveling with Pets
An unloved wife finds her colorless world turning remarkably brighter after her husband suddenly expires in this graceful look at a woman’s midlife awakening, which took grand prize at the Moscow In more...
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- Vera Storozheva
- Russia
- 2007
- Tulpan
Honorably discharged from the Russian navy, Asa returns home to the Hunger Steppe of southern Kazakhstan and sets about fulfilling his life goals of getting married, building his own yurt and becoming more...
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- Sergey Dvortsevoy
- Kazakhstan/Switzerland/Germany/Russia/Poland
- 2008
- Twilight
A woman searches for her missing daughter during the perpetual twilight of St. Petersburg's white nights. more...
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- Victoria Gamburg
- Russia
- 2005
- Under the Sun
Shot with the permission and supervision of North Korean authorities—a collaboration they would come to regret—Under the Sun turns a propaganda effort into a deep-cover documentar more...
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- Vitaly Mansky
- Russia/Latvia/Germany/Czech Republic/North Korea
- 2015
- The Very Best Day
The charm of silence for an artisan who creates instruments of huge sounds. A lyrical portrait of the only pipe-organ maker in Russia. —Maïa Cybelle Carpenter more...
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- Pavel Medvedev
- Russia
- 2003
- Viva Castro!
There’s a scene in Viva Castro! where a group of Russian factory workers, preparing for a visit by Fidel Castro—an important icon to the Soviet people at the time—are trying to learn a Cu more...
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- Boris Frumin
- Russia
- 1993
- Voices
A camera glides through a deserted Russian villa filled with books, photographs and death masks—of Dostoyevsky (smiling!), Pushkin, Verlaine. From a long-ago silence, we hear voices. The house, on t more...
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- Andrey Osipov
- Russia
- 1997
- Whispering Pages
The unbridgeable abyss between Hollywood and film art is nowhere more strongly illuminated than in the enigmatic, visionary films of Russian director Alexandr Sokurov, one of world cinema’s contempo more...
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- Alexander Sokurov
- Russia / Germany
- 1993
- Wild Field
On a remote medical outpost amid the mysterious and sublime beauty of the Kazakh steppes, a young doctor struggles to treat whatever bizarre wounds the wild winds blow in. Working alone, and with far more...
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- Mikhail Kalatozishvili
- Russia
- 2008
- The Year of the Dog
Talk about star-crossed lovers. Sergei Koschin (Igor Skljar), an embittered and sometimes violent criminal, has just been released after a long prison term. He meets a shy, middle-aged spinster named more...
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- Semyon Aranovich
- Russia
- 1994
FACTOID #361
John Huston, director of classics The Maltese Falcon and The Misfits, was honored with a Festival tribute in 1968. His daughter Anjelica received the Peter J. Owens Award in 1991; The Dead, one of the father-daughter duo’s collaborations, screened at her onstage interview.
