Bountiful Summer (1951)

The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu

Fu Manchu's 168th birthday celebration is dampened when a hapless flunky spills Fu's age-regressing elixir vitae. Fu sends his lackeys to round up ingredients for a new batch of elixir, starting with the Star of Leningrad diamond, nabbed from a Soviet exhibition in Washington. The FBI sends agents Capone and Williams to England to confer with Nayland Smith, an expert on Fu.

One, Two, Three

C.R. MacNamara is a managing director for Coca Cola in West Berlin during the Cold War, just before the Wall is put up. When Scarlett, the rebellious daughter of his boss, comes to West Berlin, MacNamara has to look after her, but this turns out to be a difficult task when she reveals to be married to a communist.

The Experts

Travis and Wendell are two down-on-their-luck New Yorkers who think they're relocating to a small town in Nebraska to open a nightclub. What they don't know is they've actually been abducted by a KGB operative and flown to the Soviet Union, where they'll unwittingly serve as "experts" on all things cool in America. The town, created expressly for KGB spies-in-training, is meant to serve as a training ground for Soviet agents. What can these two hapless Americans possibly teach the Soviet spies, and will they ever learn they are not actually in Nebraska?

Adam's Rib

The film is based on the story of Anatoly Kurchatkin "House of Women". A tragicomedy about four women of three generations who lives in a tiny Moscow apartment: a sick grandmother, constantly requiring attention; a mother, very peculiar woman, who still hoping to somehow arrange her personal life; and two daughters, each of whom has a lot of problems.

The Girl with the Hat Box

A Moscow hat shop girl chances upon a penniless young man who has arrived from the countryside for university and takes pity on him.

Zigzag of Success

Photo studio "Contemporary" in a provincial town lives with its everyday problems. The director is concerned over the failure to fulfill the planned targets, receptionist Alevtina wants to get married, and photographer Vladimir Oreshnikov dreams of becoming a professional photographer. But suddenly luck smiles on Oreshnikov. He takes 20 rubles form the worker's mutual aid fund, buys a government lottery bond and wins 10,000 rubles. Oreshnikov wants to receive the win himself, but his colleagues object to him, because the money that he spent on the bond were public, hence the win should be divided equally among all workers. It creates a controversial situation, which is successfully resolved on the very eve of the New Year, under the chiming clock...

Striped Trip

A Soviet cruise ship "Evgeni Onegin" is carrying cages with tigers and lions for a Soviet Circus. One loose monkey unlocks all cages, letting the tigers and lions out. Poor passengers and crew have no place to run. The captain abandons his post out of fear, and the monkey takes over the captain's post. The ship gets under total control by the tigers and lions. Only one lady is standing up to the challenge. Her name is Marianna, she loves animals, and she takes the situation under control.

Afonya

The 1975 film by Georgi Daneliya "Afonya" was an unexpected commercial hit in USSR. The main character "Afonya" Borshev is a plumber, who spends his life partying with "buddies", many of whom he doesn't even remember after nights of heavy drinking. His wife leaves him, his boss places him on probation, his whole life is falling apart, but he doesn't realize it. Afonya met Katya at a dance club, yet didn't pay her much attention. But she is the one, who can save him... In this movie Daneliya achieves a perfect balance of satire and drama. Quotes from the movie gained a cult status in USSR.

Kin-dza-dza!

Two Soviet humans previously unknown to each other are transported to the planet Pluke in the Kin-dza-da galaxy due to a chance encounter with an alien teleportation device. They must come to grips with a language barrier and Plukian social norms (not to mention the laws of space and time) if they ever hope to return to Earth.

Show Boy

A heartbreaking story about the tragic love between a young soloist named Andrey Dymov and an equally young, but more experienced "Priestess of Love" named Masha.

Silent Wedding

In a small village of Communist-era Romania a young couple wish to marry, but Joseph Stalin dies the night prior to their wedding ceremony forcing the bride and groom to marry in silence.

Chess in Concert

The story of a romantic triangle between two top players, an American and a Russian, in a world chess championship, and a woman who manages one and falls in love with the other, all in the context of the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Heart of a Dog

Professor Preobrazhensky puts courageous experiences, trying to turn a dog in equal to in all of the person. As a result somebody turns out Doggies. Unfortunately, experience proves that it is better for dog to remain a dog.

Wisdom Meter

Plot unavailable

Leto

Leningrad, one summer in the early eighties. Smuggling LPs by Lou Reed and David Bowie, the underground rock scene is boiling ahead of the Perestroika. Mike and his beautiful wife Natasha meet with young Viktor Tsoï. Together with friends, they will change the destiny of rock’n’roll in the Soviet Union.

The Humorist

The Humorist is a film about a week in the life of Boris Arkadiev, a fictional Soviet stand-up comedian. Boris is tormented not only by external oppression and censorship but also by his own insecurities that poison all his relationships.

Twist Again in Moscow

Igor, who manages a fancy hotel and is on the take, has to juggle several problems at once. He has a two-hour window to get his ill-got gain out of the hotel, he must misdirect and obstruct the inquiries of a Party auditor who suspects that all is not above board, and he must keep out of sight and out of trouble his interloping and troublesome young brother-in-law, who arrives unannounced with barrels of rotten herring.

Guest from Kuban

A young man comes to work to kolkhoz where no one knows that he has no experience whatsoever.

01-99

Drunkard Garsevan is supposed to bring wine for testing to specialist Poghosyan. On the road he drinks the wine and is picked up by two young men who think that he is a victim of road accident.

Fit for Non-Combatant

Plot unavailable

Penalty Kick

A crafty swindler, appointed to be a coach of an amateur sports team, came up with a cheat plan for victory - secretly recruit a number of professional players to his team.

Live in Joy

A kolkhoz machine-operator is a local inventor who has tensions with his wife over his hobby. He invents a useful appendage for a grain harvester combine and an article about his invention is printed in a local paper. Kolkhoz chairman then entrusts him with a mission to get equipment from a nearby city for building a bridge, but the machine-operator is duped by crooks.

Tjvjik

Rich Nikoghos-agha buys some beef liver for Nerses-akhpar's family. Although months have passed, Nikoghos-agha does not hesitate to remind his "charity" to Nerses-akhpar every time they met.

Norwegian Ninja

Norwegian Ninja is the true story of how Commander Arne Treholt and his Ninja Force saved Norway during the Cold War. In 1983 the Ninja Force discovers that the sinister NATO force Stay Behind, who take charge in times of war and emergency, are planning a coup-d'état in peacetime. Treholt and the Ninjas see only one solution: a full can of whoop-ass.

Lieutenant Kizhe

A copying error by a military scribe turns the Russian words "the lieutenants, however" into what looks like "lieutenant Kizhe". The Tsar reads the error, and wants to meet this (non-existent) lieutenant. The courtiers, eager to avoid the wrath of the temperamental Tsar, create a Kizhe to serve as their royal scapegoat.

Three Times About Love

Former soldier returns to his village only to discover that his girlfriend married another man.

Adult Children

Anatoli Kuzmich retired and received a separate apartment in a new house. He and his wife are happy and make bright plans for the future: how they will go to theaters, museums, read their favorite books. But their daughter Lyusya suddenly gets married. Not wanting to part with her, Korolyovs persuade the young spouses to live with them in a new apartment. Soon a child is born, and gradually life together becomes unbearable...

Once in the XX Century

The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the failure of Communism has been symbolically documented by many tv reportages of removals of monumental public sculptures, but the citizens of Vilnius in Lithuania did the unexpected!

The Mulberry Tree

In their first collaboration Melkonian and cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov film two neighbour families that both claim ownership of a huge mulberry tree growing in the middle of their two houses.

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.

Castling (An Aquarium Confession)

One decent citizen was having lunch and indifferently looking at the fish in his aquarium. But suddenly a real monster emerged from the muddy water. However, unwillingness to strain even to save his own life led the hero to slavery. Or maybe nothing has really changed in his life?

Lessons at the End of Spring

A young boy loses his innocence in a pre-perestroika Russian prison during the chaotic last months of the Khrushchev regime

DAU. Katya Tanya

Katya, a young librarian, believes in love, but her ideals are crushed by reality. After a string of disappointing affairs, Katya finally finds tenderness and understanding in the arms of her colleague, a journalist called Tanya. But then the First Department interferes: the state security services see this relationship as unacceptable for a Soviet woman.

Battle for Sevastopol

The story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the most successful female sniper in history.

The Fires of Baku

Dedicated to the development of the oil industry of Soviet Azerbaijan in the background of the first half of the twentieth century, including their selfless work in strengthening the economic and military might of the USSR.

The Dawns Here Are Quiet

It is late spring of 1942, and the Great Patriotic War is in full swing. A long way off from the front-line, at some God-forgotten junction, the Germans make an air landing operation in an attempt to get through to the Kirov railway and the White Sea - the Baltic Sea Canal. These aren't just ordinary paratroopers. This is a team of seasoned and highly trained infiltrators, the elite of the Waffen-SS, superhumans. The only thing in their way is an anti-aircraft artillery unit of corporal Vaskov and five young women in training. It may seem like a fight of local significance, but the countrys main strategic transportation artery is at stake. Can the corporal and his 'petite newbies' prevent Nazi sabotage and at what cost? Television version: An extended version made out of four 45 minute episodes was released on Channel One Russia, on 9 May 2016. Available on PrimeVideo.

The Red Arrow

The Red Arrow is the special train No.1 between Leningrad and Moscow. The film is set in the 1980s during perestroika in the Soviet Union. Kropotov (Lavrov) is communist CEO of a big industrial company in Leningrad. He is crafty and successful in getting a major order from the Soviet Government; building an automated assembly line. But his style of management clashes with his subordinates, talented engineers. Their potential is strangled by Kropotov's manipulative control. The government order is not accomplished and Kropotov gets fired. He is rethinking his outdated business style while on the train No.1 to Moscow.

The History of the Civil War

The epic story of the Russian Civil War (1918-21): the White Terror, the counterrevolutionary uprisings, the guerrilla war, the Kolchak front, the Wrangel front and the Kronstadt rebellion. Chaos and violence, devastation and death.

Kino Eye

This documentary promoting the joys of life in a Soviet village centers on the activities of the Young Pioneers. These children are constantly busy, pasting propaganda posters on walls, distributing hand bills, exhorting all to "buy from the cooperative" as opposed to the Public Sector, promoting temperance, and helping poor widows. Experimental portions of the film, projected in reverse, feature the un-slaughtering of a bull and the un-baking of bread.

How the Holocaust Began

Historian James Bulgin reveals the origins of the Holocaust in the German invasion of the Soviet Union, exploring the mass murder, collaboration and experimentation that led to the Final Solution.

World War III Breaks Out

The lives of several Japanese families are shattered as the USA and the USSR move toward war, Japan finds itself caught in the middle, and Tokyo is ultimately evacuated as the two superpowers invoke the 'nuclear option'.

A Span of Land

The film is about the hot war summer of 1944. A group of several gun crews defends a tiny bridgehead on the right bank of the Dniester. The fates of the main characters: the front-line soldier-battalion commander Babin, the young lieutenant Motovilov, the nurse Rita Tamashova and the rank-and-file gunners, soldiers, among whom are brave people, faint-hearted and scoundrels, unnoticed heroes, are shown in a setting of several hours of peaceful life before another violent attack of the enemy, after which not everyone will survive...

Stone

Via the New York Times: "...a severely obscure meditation on pre-revolutionary Russia in the form of an encounter between a ghost from the past and the ghost's present-day guardian. In fact, the two characters seem to be the shade of Anton Chekhov and the young man who tends a Chekhov museum in the Crimea, though that is never made explicit."

Child 44

Set in Stalin-era Soviet Union, a disgraced MGB agent is dispatched to investigate a series of child murders -- a case that begins to connect with the very top of party leadership.

Velvet Season

In the fall of 1938, three former fighters of the international brigade — russian Shukhov, frenchman Henri and american Liz — fall into a resort town on the border of Spain and France. Having met a nurse who is supposed to send Spanish children to Corsica, they decide to help her. However, a fascist rebellion suddenly breaks out in the city, and the children are held hostage to criminals.

Clean Ponds

A poetic biography of a generation of young pre-war and wartime people, based on the works of Yuri Nagibin. Four inseparable friends — Sergei, Nina, Oska and Zhenya — spent all their school childhood on the Clean Ponds, in Moscow. But the school is over, and in their beloved gazebo they dream of the future, swear fidelity to each other and do not yet know that tomorrow war will break out and they will become participants in terrible events …

Men and Beasts

The plot is based on the dramatic fate of the Red Army commander Aleksei Ivanovich Pavlov. Having been captured in January 1942 and being among the displaced persons, he didn't immediately decide to return to the USSR. Having rolled around the foreign country for 17 years, Aleksei nevertheless returned to his homeland. He goes to his brother in the south of the country to Sevastopol. Aleksei accidentally meets the doctor Anna Andreyevna, who was saved from death in besieged Leningrad. She travels by car from Moscow and also to the south, with her daughter Tanya; she suggests he join them. Aleksei tells about his life on the road.

72 Degrees Below Zero

Antarctic station "Vostok" threatens conservation due to lack of fuel. Volunteer squad is called to take fuel, but will soon begin "Polar autumn" in Antarctica. No one has walked this way, when the temperature drops below 71 degrees Celsius and freezes fuels.

Despite the Falling Snow

New York, 1961. Alexander Ivanov, a high-ranked Soviet bureaucrat, reluctantly defects to the West while is part of a diplomatic mission, feeling the grief of being unable to know the fate of his wife Katya, whom he has had to leave behind in Moscow. Only many years later, in 1991, he will finally find out the truth when his niece Lauren travels to Moscow to participate in a painting exhibition.

Closing Gambit: 1978 Korchnoi versus Karpov and the Kremlin

The story of the 1978 World Chess Championship between the Soviet Communist Party's protege, Anatoly Karpov and the traitor and Soviet defector, Viktor Korchnoi. One of those instances in life where truth is stranger than fiction.

The Seventh Companion

A portrait of the era of "Red Terror" during the civil war that followed the Bolshevik revolution, The Seventh Companion offers a character study in General Adamov (Andrei Popov), a law professor in the tsarist army, who is incarcerated by the Bolshevik secret police along with many other members of the bourgeoisie. Finally released into the new world of the Soviet Union, the resigned officer finds that he has lost everything from his old life except a mantel clock that he carries through the night from place to place, until he ends up back where he started.

Anniversary of the Revolution

A chronicle of the Russian Revolution of 1917, from the bourgeois democratic February Revolution to the great socialist October Revolution and the final triumph.

Phantom

The haunted Captain of a Soviet submarine holds the fate of the world in his hands. Forced to leave his family behind, he is charged with leading a covert mission cloaked in mystery.

The Spy Who Went Into the Cold

A documentary about Kim Philby, a British member of MI6 who was in reality a spy and defected to the U.S.S.R.