80-year-old Zinaida Gorshkova--the last resident of the village of Otary of the Mari SSR---entertains herself: walking along the forest, she sings songs that still preserves her decrepit memory: Soviet times of collectivization, church times of childhood. In songs, in faces co old photos still preserved the memory of the former, bygone life.
Mihail Romm,
Marlen Huciev,
Elem Klimov,
German Lavrov
Originally called World '68, later retitled The World of Today Romm’s film was conceived as an impassioned, large-scale essay on the origins of the 20th more
Originally called World '68, later retitled The World of Today Romm’s film was conceived as an impassioned, large-scale essay on the origins of the 20th century and the subsequent reality the disappointed director felt slipping away from him. The film itself slipped away from him and was left unfinished at the time of his death. His younger colleagues, Marlen Khutsiev, Elem Klimov and German Lavrov, completed the film from the elements he left behind in addition to segments from Ordinary Fascism, closing the film with Romm’s ultimately optimistic outlook: "And still I believe that man is sensible..." close
Victor Kossakovsky searched obsessively for inhabitants of St. Petersburg who were born on Wednesday 19 July 1961, his own birthday, in former Leningrad. more
Victor Kossakovsky searched obsessively for inhabitants of St. Petersburg who were born on Wednesday 19 July 1961, his own birthday, in former Leningrad. Fifty-one women and fifty men fitted the profile. In the course of time a few of these 101 people had died, others had moved to another community or abroad. But in 1995 Kossakovsky managed to capture on film all seventy remaining residents, in the street, at work or simply at home. While doing so he spent time with doctors and patients, entertainers and businessmen, construction workers and homeless people. In his unorthodox style Kossakovsky has produced a beautiful profile of people in their thirties in St. Petersburg. close
Portrait of a troubled peasant family. The film tells the story of two times widow Anna Belova who lives together with her brother Mikhail. Blending the more
Portrait of a troubled peasant family. The film tells the story of two times widow Anna Belova who lives together with her brother Mikhail. Blending the two personalities, Kosakovsky characterizes the true Russian soul: she is the rational worker, honest and strong - he is the drunken poet, the idealist, his philosophy fades into radical nonsense time after time. close
An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery more
An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time. (Silent short, voiced in 1937 and 1996.) close