Astrakan 79 (2024)

Flying Supersonic

Thundering across the sky on elegant white wings, the Concorde was an instant legend. But behind the glamour of jet setting at Mach 2 were stunning scientific innovations and political intrigue. Fifteen years after Concorde's final flight, this documentary takes you inside the historic international race to develop the first supersonic airliner. Hear stories from those inside the choreographed effort to design and build Concorde in two countries at once - and the crew members who flew her.

Home and Away

Shawn Huff and Ervin Latimer Jr. are the children of African-American basketball players Leon Huff and Ervin Latimer Sr. who arrived in Finland in the 1970s. They have grown up to become Finnish social and political influencers through their fathers' perseverance, ambition and the societal racism that has been passed down through the generations to their sons. The sons channel the experiences of their silent fathers into action and both generations fight for a more equal world.

A Sky Without Stars

A story of the love between a father who is losing his eyesight and his seven-year-old son who learns to become his father’s guide and his eyes. What the son sees for the first time, the father is most likely seeing for the last. Their unique relationship illustrates the saying that love is invisible to the eye.

Song from the Forest

25 years ago, Louis Sarno, an American, heard a song on the radio and followed its melody into the Central Africa Jungle and stayed. He than recorded over 1000 hours of original BaAka music. Now he is part of the BaAka community and raises his pygmy son, Samedi. Fulfilling an old promise, Louis takes Samedi to America. On this journey Louis realizes he is not part of this globalized world anymore but globalization has also arrived in the rainforest. The BaAka depend on Louis for their survival. Father and son return to the melodies of the jungle but the question remains: How much longer will the songs of the forest be heard?

Strip and War

The film tells the story of a small family, consisting of a grandfather retired from the army, and his stripper grandson. It is not just a story of a relationship, but rather a reflection of entire Belarus and the post-Soviet, pro-Russian world. Moreover, it's a universally-recognized reflection of a generation gap.

ROT54: Armenia's Forgotten Space Giant

Armenian radio-engineer Arevik Sargsyan has struggled throughout her life to preserve ROT54, a giant telescope built by her uncle in the 1980s. But the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that ROT54 was left abandoned for 30 years. Now, Arevik is attempting to take control of the telescope and prove it still works.

TaMtAm - Music of the time of troubles

Documentary film about the first St. Petersburg music club TaMtAm. It existed since 1991 upon 1996 and was held by Vsevolod Gakkel, ex-cellist of "Аквариум". The concept was modelled on cult NY club CBGB-OMFUG. Despite its controversial history this is the place where a new generation of Russian punk music was discovered.

The Last Lost Kingdom

Following in the footsteps of his father, Folco Felzani embarks on an epic journey on foot in search of Mustang, the last lost kingdom, in northern Nepal. The story of a king without a kingdom. The adventure of a son without a father.

Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer

An account of the life and work of Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky (1932-86) in his own words: his memories, his vision of art and his reflections on the fate of the artist and the meaning of human existence; through extremely rare audio recordings that allow a complete understanding of his inner life and the mysterious world existing behind his complex cinematic imagery.

Over the Hills

Father and son Vít and Grisha travel to Russia to visit the boy’s mother and sister. Why did their previously harmonious family split in two? A documentary road movie about the distance between two Slavic countries, the difficulties of fatherhood and puberty, and the alienation between people who should, in theory, be the closest of all.

Man with a Movie Camera

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

Little Potato

Wes Hurley's autobiographical tale of growing up gay in Soviet Union Russia, only to escape with his mother, a mail order bride, to Seattle to face a whole new oppression in his new Christian fundamentalist American dad.

Soviet Hippies

The hippie movement that captivated hundreds of thousands of young people in the West had a profound impact on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Within the Soviet system, a colorful crowd of artists, musicians, freaks, vagabonds and other long-haired drop-outs created their own system, which connected those who believed in peace, love, and freedom for their bodies and souls. More than 40 years later, a group of eccentric hippies from Estonia take a road trip to Moscow where the hippies still gather annually on the 1st of June for celebration that is related to the tragic event in 1971, when thousands of Soviet hippies were arrested by the KGB. The journey through time and dimensions goes deep into the psychedelic underground world in which these people strived for freedom.

The Soviet Union: A New Look

This film discusses conditions in the Soviet Union, including party activity and influence, the shortage of consumer goods, the roles of children and women, the status of religion, and the purpose of Soviet realist art.

The Scientist, The Imposter and Stalin: How to Feed the People

The documentary tells two very different human fates in the 1920s Soviet Union. Nikolai Vavilov was a botanical genius, Trofim Lyssenko was an agronomist who made great promises and fake inventions. Each of them tried to solve the country's nutritional problem, but only one succeeded.

Russian Close-Up

Albert Maysles' visual diary of the faces and places encountered along a cross country motorscooter ride through the Soviet Union in the late 1950s.

Werner We Love You

When Werner Herzog was still a child, his father was beaten to death before his eyes. His mother was overwhelmed with his upbringing and thereupon shipped him off to one of the toughest youth welfare institutions in Freistatt. This was followed by a career as a bouncer in the city's most notorious music club and an attempt to start a family. Today, the 77-year-old from Bielefeld lives with his dog Lucky in a lonely house in the country. Despite adverse living conditions, he has survived in his own unique and inimitable way.

The Human Face of Russia

Documentary on the USSR

Michael Jackson: Moscow Case 1993

The Moscow Case is a 52 minute documentary with never-before-seen footage of Michael Jackson in Moscow during the "Dangerous" tour. This film tells the behind the scenes story of Jackson's ill fated concert in September 1993. It includes unique archival footage showing Michael close up and personal while meeting fans and playing with orphan children.

Khrushchev Does America

The story of the unconditional, no-holds-barred tour of America by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, leader of World Communism and America's arch nemesis, during 13 sun-filled days in the fall of 1959.

Leninland

At the peak of Perestroika, in 1987, in the village of Gorki, where Lenin spent his last years, after a long construction, the last and most grandiose museum of the Leader was opened. Soon after the opening, the ideology changed, and the flow of pilgrims gradually dried up. Despite this, the museum still works and the management is looking for ways to attract visitors. Faithful to the Lenin keepers of the museum as they can resist the onset of commercialization. The film tells about the modern life of this amazing museum-reserve and its employees.

The Great Game

An old, ailing general is losing his memory. His anarchist son wants to connect. They share a passion for the Wild East, where grandfather was a famous explorer among Mongol tribes. He died under mysterious circumstances in 1948 in Afghanistan. Rumors say he was a British agent and gunrunner. Michael, the grandson, takes his father Søren out of the nursing home. He wants him to taste life, and he wants them to spend time together. The odd couple travel across China. They encounter temples, chiefs, and ancestors who reveal that the grandfather was a true Lawrence of the East. A man who fought to unite the Mongol tribes and defend them against the Soviet Reds.

Hitler & Stalin: Portrait of Hostility

A double portrait of two dictators who were thousands of miles apart but were constantly fixated on each other.

Disco and Atomic War

A different history of the Cold War: how Estonians under Soviet tyranny began to feel the breeze of freedom when a group of anonymous dreamers successfully used improbable methods to capture the Finnish television signal, a window into Western popular culture, brave but harmless warriors who helped change the fate of an entire nation.

Soviet Bus Stops

“There’s a bus stop I want to photograph.” This may sound like a parody of an esoteric festival film, but Canadian Christopher Herwig’s photography project is entirely in earnest, and likely you will be won over by his passion for this unusual subject within the first five minutes. Soviet architecture of the 1960s and 70s was by and large utilitarian, regimented, and mass-produced. Yet the bus stops Herwig discovers on his journeys criss-crossing the vast former Soviet Bloc are something else entirely: whimsical, eccentric, flamboyantly artistic, audacious, colourful. They speak of individualism and locality, concepts anathema to the Communist doctrine. Herwig wants to know how this came to pass and tracks down some of the original unsung designers, but above all he wants to capture these exceptional roadside way stations on film before they disappear.

The Secret KGB JFK Assassination Files

On Nov. 22, 1963 the world was shocked by the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The mystery surrounding this history-changing event has led to many unanswered questions.

Stalin's Last Plot

January 1953: On the eve of his death Stalin finds himself yet another imaginary enemy: Jewish doctors. He organizes the most violent anti-Semitic campaign ever launched in the USSR, by fabricating the "Doctors' Plot," whereby doctors are charged with conspiring to murder the highest dignitaries of the Soviet Regime. Still unknown and untold, this conspiracy underlines the climax of a political scheme successfully masterminded by Stalin to turn the Jews into the new enemies of the people. It reveals his extreme paranoia and his compulsion to manipulate those around him. The children and friends of the main victims recount for the first time their experience and their distress related to these nightmarish events.

Gulag

Documentary examining Stalin's Gulag. Between the October Revolution and Stalin's death in 1953, millions of people died in the camps. The film explores the Gulag legacy, hearing from victims and perpetrators of the system.

"Sr."

A portrait of the life and career of Robert Downey Sr. (1936-2021), the visionary and fearless US filmmaker — father of actor Robert Downey Jr. — who in the sixties and seventies laid the foundations for countercultural comedy.