Русалка (Mermaid) is a 2007 Russian arthouse film very loosely inspired by Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid.” It follows the tale of an eccentric and determined young girl as she ventures from her small beach town by the Black Sea to contemporary Moscow and adjusts to life in the bustling city while pursuing an […]
The Heritage of Love (in Russian marketed as Герой, or Hero) is a romantic drama that takes place in dual time periods: during the Russian Revolution and the modern 20th century. The film follows the love tale of Duchess Vera Chernisheva played by Svetlana Ivanova, and Officer Andrey Petrovich Dolmatov played by pop singing sensation […]
Движение вверх (known as Going Vertical or Three Seconds in English) broke the record of highest earning Russian film at the global box office shortly after its release in late 2017. According to Russia’s KinoPoisk, it earned a grand total of nearly sixty million dollars. Although the record has again been broken by other films, […]
The movie Довлатов (Dovlatov) originally premiered on 17 February at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival. The film was produced by Metrafilms, SAGa, and Art and Pop Corn, and was directed by Aleksei German Jr. The film is available on Netflix with English subtitles and on the Russian streaming service ivi, without subtitles. Довлатов is […]
Sobibor was first released in Russia on May 3rd, 2018. It was released throughout the latter half of 2018 in several European countries, and in the United States in March of 2019. The film was directed and starred in by Konstantin Khabensky and produced by Fetisoff Illusion, ArtBox Company, and Visual Arts. The film won […]
Eldar Ryazanov is one of Russia’s most popular film directors. Holidays, especially New Year’s, Russia’s most important family holiday, are celebrated by, in part, watching his movies. Although Irony of Fate is the most popular and well-known for this, nearly any of Ryazanov’s films can be found playing in the background of festive family celebrations. […]
Prisoner of the Mountains (Кавказский пленник) is a 1996 film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s 1872 war novella “Prisoner of the Caucasus.” Directed by Sergei Bodrov (Сергей Бодров) and starring Oleg Menshikov (Олег Меньшиков), Sergei Bodrov, Jr. (Сергей Сергеевич Бодров), Dzhemal Sikharulidze (Джемал Сихарулидзе), and Susanna Mekhralieva (Сусанна Мехралиева), the film was nominated for an Academy […]
Tangerines (Mandariinid) is a 2013 Estonian–Georgian drama film. It’s in Russian and Estonian, despite the fact that it takes place in and was filmed in Georgia. The film is about a village in Abkhazia (considered a part of Georgia or an independent republic, depending on who you ask), whose residents are mostly ethnic Estonians. The year […]
The Return (Хайтарма / Qaytarma) is a 2013 Crimean-Tatar (not to be confused with simply Tatar!) dramatic film. It was produced in Ukraine and is in both Russian and Crimean Tatar languages. The film tells the story of the events of May 1944, when over the course of a few days Stalin had the Crimean Tatars […]
