Kino-Pravda No. 23: Radio Pravda (1925)

Radio Days

The Narrator tells us how the radio influenced his childhood in the days before TV. In the New York City of the late 1930s to the New Year's Eve 1944, this coming-of-age tale mixes the narrator's experiences with contemporary anecdotes and urban legends of the radio stars.

The Theory of Everything

The Theory of Everything is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.

Star Wars

Princess Leia is captured and held hostage by the evil Imperial forces in their effort to take over the galactic Empire. Venturesome Luke Skywalker and dashing captain Han Solo team together with the loveable robot duo R2-D2 and C-3PO to rescue the beautiful princess and restore peace and justice in the Empire.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit enjoying his quiet life, is swept into an epic quest by Gandalf the Grey and thirteen dwarves who seek to reclaim their mountain home from Smaug, the dragon.

The Matrix Resurrections

Plagued by strange memories, Neo's life takes an unexpected turn when he finds himself back inside the Matrix.

Black Swan

The story of Nina, a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her retired ballerina mother Erica who zealously supports her daughter's professional ambition. When artistic director Thomas Leroy decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice.

The Matrix Reloaded

The Resistance builds in numbers as humans are freed from the Matrix and brought to the city of Zion. Neo discovers his superpowers, including the ability to see the code inside the Matrix. With machine sentinels digging to Zion in 72 hours, Neo, Morpheus and Trinity must find the Keymaker to ultimately reach the Source.

The Dark Knight Rises

Following the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman assumes responsibility for Dent's crimes to protect the late attorney's reputation and is subsequently hunted by the Gotham City Police Department. Eight years later, Batman encounters the mysterious Selina Kyle and the villainous Bane, a new terrorist leader who overwhelms Gotham's finest. The Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him an enemy.

Return of the Jedi

Luke Skywalker leads a mission to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, while the Emperor seeks to destroy the Rebellion once and for all with a second dreaded Death Star.

The Empire Strikes Back

The epic saga continues as Luke Skywalker, in hopes of defeating the evil Galactic Empire, learns the ways of the Jedi from aging master Yoda. But Darth Vader is more determined than ever to capture Luke. Meanwhile, rebel leader Princess Leia, cocky Han Solo, Chewbacca, and droids C-3PO and R2-D2 are thrown into various stages of capture, betrayal and despair.

Pearl Harbor

The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval nurse Evelyn Johnson. But the rivalry between the friends-turned-foes is immediately put on hold when they find themselves at the center of Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Following Smaug's attack on Laketown, Bilbo and the dwarves try to defend Erebor's mountain of treasure from others who claim it: the men of the ruined Laketown and the elves of Mirkwood. Meanwhile an army of Orcs led by Azog the Defiler is marching on Erebor, fueled by the rise of the dark lord Sauron. Dwarves, elves and men must unite, and the hope for Middle-Earth falls into Bilbo's hands.

1917

At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers.

Beauty and the Beast

A live-action adaptation of Disney's version of the classic tale of a cursed prince and a beautiful young woman who helps him break the spell.

Inglourious Basterds

In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds, lead by Lt. Aldo Raine soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.

Men in Black

After a police chase with an otherworldly being, a New York City cop is recruited as an agent in a top-secret organization established to monitor and police alien activity on Earth: the Men in Black. Agent K and new recruit Agent J find themselves in the middle of a deadly plot by an intergalactic terrorist who has arrived on Earth to assassinate two ambassadors from opposing galaxies.

V for Vendetta

In a world in which Great Britain has become a fascist state, a masked vigilante known only as “V” conducts guerrilla warfare against the oppressive British government. When V rescues a young woman from the secret police, he finds in her an ally with whom he can continue his fight to free the people of Britain.

Batman Begins

Driven by tragedy, billionaire Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to uncovering and defeating the corruption that plagues his home, Gotham City. Unable to work within the system, he instead creates a new identity, a symbol of fear for the criminal underworld - The Batman.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for adventure has taken its toll: He has burned through eight of his nine lives, leaving him with only one life left. Puss sets out on an epic journey to find the mythical Last Wish and restore his nine lives.

Mad Max: Fury Road

An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, and most everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life. Within this world exist two rebels on the run who just might be able to restore order.

Forrest Gump

A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events—in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.

Interstellar

The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

Minority Report

John Anderton is a top 'Precrime' cop in the late-21st century, when technology can predict crimes before they're committed. But Anderton becomes the quarry when another investigator targets him for a murder charge.

Avatar

In the 22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission, but becomes torn between following orders and protecting an alien civilization.

The Batman

In his second year of fighting crime, Batman uncovers corruption in Gotham City that connects to his own family while facing a serial killer known as the Riddler.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Thirty years after defeating the Galactic Empire, Han Solo and his allies face a new threat from the evil Kylo Ren and his army of Stormtroopers.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Doctor Strange, with the help of mystical allies both old and new, traverses the mind-bending and dangerous alternate realities of the Multiverse to confront a mysterious new adversary.

After Earth

One thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humanity's escape from Earth, Nova Prime has become mankind's new home. Legendary General Cypher Raige returns from an extended tour of duty to his estranged family, ready to be a father to his 13-year-old son, Kitai. When an asteroid storm damages Cypher and Kitai's craft, they crash-land on a now unfamiliar and dangerous Earth. As his father lies dying in the cockpit, Kitai must trek across the hostile terrain to recover their rescue beacon. His whole life, Kitai has wanted nothing more than to be a soldier like his father. Today, he gets his chance.

The Big Short

The men who made millions from a global economic meltdown.

Shutter Island

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

Get Out

Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.

Source Code

When decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he's part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train.

Hacksaw Ridge

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Blade Runner 2049

Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

Alien: Covenant

The crew of the colony ship Covenant, bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise but is actually a dark, dangerous world.

Parasite

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

Ford v Ferrari

American car designer Carroll Shelby and the British-born driver Ken Miles work together to battle corporate interference, the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford Motor Company and take on the dominating race cars of Enzo Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in 1966.

Catch Me If You Can

A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. An FBI agent makes it his mission to put him behind bars. But Frank not only eludes capture, he revels in the pursuit.

The Hunt

A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

Kino-Pravda No. 8

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: A bet is placed on the outcome of the Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries / The verdict / People in streetcars and on the street / A crashed aircraft / Reconstruction of streetcar line 13 / Peacetime use of tanks – airport construction work.

Kino-Pravda No. 14

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: IV. Congress of the Comintern / Congress of the Profintern.

Lenin and the Other Story of the Russian Revolution

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…

Kino-Pravda No. 7

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries / Rebuilding of the destroyed Siberian village of Taseevo / Railroad station Sljudjanka / Abandoned mica pits near Lake Baikal / Soči health resort / Chudjakovskij-Park / Beach near Tuapse / The loading of silk / Afghanistan, Kabul / Peacetime use of tanks / Mountain road / Chapel in the Caucasus.

Kino-Pravda No. 15

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Against war / Against Gods / Education / Agitation / Sports and gymnastics / Danger of war.

Do Not August, 1991

The film was made in the days of the August 1991 coup in Leningrad, USSR . Respecting the manner of a proprietary parallel cinema with the use of hand-held camera . Subsequently, Lars von Trier in his " Dogma " went on the same way , using a handheld camera without a tripod or placing special light. The soundtrack of the film is the soundtrack Emergency Committee appeal for the All-Union Radio August 19, 1991 . The film captured the moment of change red tricolor flag on the roof of the Mariinsky Palace on August 20, 1991.

Russia 1917: Countdown to Revolution

Russia, 1917. After the abdication of Czar Nicholas II Romanov, the struggle for power confronts allies, enemies, factions and ideas; a ruthless battle between democracy and authoritarianism that will end with the takeover of the government by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

The Russian Revolution

Starting in 1881 this film shows the personal battle between Lenin's Ulyanov family and the royal Romanovs that eventually led to the Russian revolution.

Kino-Pravda No. 17

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Hunger and harvest / Alliance between city and country / Agricultural and home industries exhibition: To the exhibition, construction work and preparations, exhibits, map of the exhibition, visitors

Kino-Pravda No. 18: A Movie-Camera Race over 299 Metres and 14 Minutes and 50 Seconds in the Direction of Soviet Reality

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Up the Eiffel Tower in Paris / Moscow / Auto race Petrograd – Moscow / Aspects of everyday Soviet life / Peasant from Jaroslavl' visiting Moscow / Ceremonial introduction of a newborn into a workers' collective

Kino-Pravda No. 20: Pioneer Pravda

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Reports of the Pioneers: Excursion to the country, to the zoo etc.

Kino-Pravda No. 22: Lenin Is Alive in the Heart of the Peasant. A Film Story

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: First anniversary of Lenin's death / Smycka of the city and the village: group of peasants visit Moscow / Lenin's effect on peasants and oppressed nations

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.

Kino-Pravda No. 21: Lenin Kino-Pravda. A Film Poem About Lenin

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel made to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of Vladimir Ilich Lenin (21st January 1924 - 1925) drawn from 'The Final Journey', a Pravda feuilleton written on the occasion of Lenin's funeral by the man who had introduced Vertov to cinema, Mikhail Koltsov. Contains: First anniversary of Lenin's death: 1. Assassination attempt on Lenin and Soviet Russia's progress under his leadership / 2. Lenin's illness, death and funeral / 3. The year after Lenin's death

The Nansen Passport

On July 5th, 1922, Norwegian explorer, scientist and diplomat Fridtjof Nansen creates a passport with which, between 1922 and 1945, he managed to protect the fundamental human rights as citizens of the world of thousands of people, famous and anonymous, who became stateless due to the tragic events that devastated Europe in the first quarter of the 20th century.

Rouge ! L'Art au pays des soviets

In the Russian Empire of the 1910s, a group of visionary painters revolutionized the aesthetic norms of their time and opted for radical abstraction. In the years between the seizure of power by the Russian Bolsheviks and Stalinism in the 1930s, the avant-gardists developed a new form of art that ushered in modernism.

Kino-Pravda No. 6

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Streetcar collision / Arms manufacturing plant resumes operation / Assembling an automobile / Bicycle and motorcycle races / A parade of Red Army armored units and an attack exercise.

Revolution: New Art for a New World

Drawing on the collections of major Russian institutions, contributions from contemporary artists, curators and performers and personal testimony from the descendants of those involved, the film brings the artists of the Russian Avant-Garde to life. It tells the stories of artists like Chagall, Kandinsky and Malevich - pioneers who flourished in response to the challenge of building a new art for a new world, only to be broken by implacable authority after 15 short years and silenced by Stalin's Socialist Realism.

Kino-Pravda No. 9

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Congress of the "Living Church" / Opening of the horse racing season / Demonstration of an American movie camera / Operation of mobile projection units.

Kino-Pravda No. 19: A Movie-Camera Race Moscow – Arctic Ocean

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Connecting city and country, south and north, summer and winter, peasant women and worker women / Emancipation of women in the USSR

Kino-Pravda No. 10

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: International Youth Day and demonstrations / All-Russian Olympiad / Streetcar collision / Construction of automobiles in a Petrograd factory.

Tsar to Lenin

A documentary film account of the Russian Revolution, based on archival footage.

Kino-Pravda No. 13: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. A Film Poem Dedicated to the October Revolution

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel. The first themed issue of Kino-Pravda, devoted to the fifth anniversary of the October Revolution in 1922.

Kino-Pravda No. 3

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries / Demonstrators carrying banners.

Kino-Pravda No. 11

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions / Delegations and diplomats / Renaming of a confectionery factory / Unloading supplies / Komsomol Day / Red Army maneuvers.

Kino-Pravda No. 16: Spring Pravda. A Lyrical View Newsreel

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Arts and crafts exhibition / Actions against hunger / Eisenstein's first film "Dnevnik Glumova" ("Glumov's Diary") / Young Pioneers / May 1, parades

Kino-Pravda No. 5

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Peasant People's Commissar for Agricultural Affairs, Vasilij Jakovenko / Health resort Soči / Sanatorium for children / Harness racing - The first Red Derby.

Kino-Pravda No. 4

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries / Motor race Moscow – Sevastopol' / Barges loaded with grain are sent to the starving in the provinces / The Caucasus and its resorts.

Kino-Pravda No. 2

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: The opening of an electric generating station / Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries.

Kino-Pravda No. 12

Lost Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel

Battleship Potemkin

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

Lenin in Paris

1911. Lenin organizes the first Bolshevik party school near Paris, in the small town of Longjumeau. Through a chain of historical parallels and associations, this time is intertwined with the events of the Paris Commune, the October Revolution and the political struggles of the post-revolutionary years.

Animal Farm

Animals on a farm lead a revolution against the farmers to put their destiny in their own hands. However this revolution eats their own children and they cannot avoid corruption.

Lenin: The Train

March/April 1917. The first world war is already a couple year to pace. A sealed train with Russian emigrants keeps on driving from Zürich Germany and Sweden to Sint-Petersburg. The outlaws stand under the guidance of Vladimir J. Lenin. Two senior officers support the revolutionary bomb "to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Yet there are some unpleasant clashes between Socialists and enthusiastic workers who are worried about the war. During train travel there comes an end to Lenin's affair with the gracious Inessa, and his wife Nadja is prepared take back him. The triumphant entrance in St. Petersburg will exceed all expectations....

Heart of a Dog

"Heart of a Dog" is a Soviet film adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s iconic novella. Set in 1920s Moscow, it tells the satirical and darkly humorous story of a stray dog named Sharik, who is transformed into a human by Professor Preobrazhensky through a daring medical experiment. The resulting man, Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov, embodies the social and ideological tensions of early Soviet society. With its sharp critique of class struggle, human nature, and the perils of radical change, the film is celebrated for its faithful adaptation, brilliant performances, and rich allegorical depth.

Baltic Glory

A film about the struggle of Baltic Fleet sailors for revolutionary Petrograd in the autumn of 1917. The film focuses on the fates of a sailor and a naval officer who join the ranks of those fighting for the revolution.

Captain Conan

The last days of World War I, Eastern front. Captain Conan, a lone wolf, a true warrior, leads a band of ruthless French fighters who love hand-to-hand combat; they are not fit for peacetime, they only feel really alive in the chaos of the battlefield.

The Soul Keeper

Zurich, 1905. Nineteen-year-old Russian Sabina Spielrein is put by her parents in a psychiatric hospital, suffering from a severe form of hysteria and refusing to eat. A compassionate doctor, Carl Gustav Jung, takes her under his care and, for the first time, experiments with the psychoanalytical method of his teacher Sigmund Freud. Thus is born a sweeping story of love and passion, of body and soul, soaring to the utmost heights, but also plunging to the darkest depths of the 20th century.

Nicholas and Alexandra

Tsar Nicholas II, the inept last monarch of Russia, insensitive to the needs of his people, is overthrown and exiled to Siberia with his family.

Dreams of the Past

Plot unavailable

The Last Command

A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.

My Seven Sons

This film was based on Samad Vurgun's "Komsomol poem". Seven sons, like seven samurai become the seven komsomols (communist leaders) who were sent to a village to establish Soviet power. Seven sons become the romanticized images of people's heroes ready to take revenge.

Lupin the Third: From Siberia with Love

Notorious thief Lupin the Third aims to steal the lost treasure of the Romanov royal family with his criminal associates along for the ride. The treasure is an immense quantity of gold hidden underground in the vaults of a mysterious Texas bank. But to obtain the gold, Lupin and his friends will have to face down both the Mafia and Rasputon, the telepathic descendant of the mad monk Rasputin. Lupin again eludes inspector Zenigata with the help of a mysterious blonde named Judy Scott, as Rasputon manipulates the world's leaders to put every obstacle in Lupin's path.

Amangeldy

In 1916, a new Russian governor is sent to the Kazakhstan steppes by the Tsar and tries to impose mandatory military service upon the native Kazakhs. A popular uprising begins against the Tsarist empire. A Kazakh hero, Amangeldy Imanov, leads the revolt and allies with the Bolsheviks against the Kazakh clans loyal to the Tsar.

Arsenal

A soldier returns to Kyiv after surviving a train crash and encounters clashes between nationalists and collectivists.

The Scarlet Lady

The film follows Lya, a woman seeking refuge from Cossack soldiers, who finds herself at the palace of Prince Nicholas. She becomes his majordomo and they fall in love, but their relationship is disrupted when Nicholas learns of her past with a Bolshevik leader. Lya is expelled, becomes a terrorist, and later encounters Nicholas again, now disguised as a servant. When Nicholas is sentenced to death, she rescues him and they escape together.

Beekeeper

The historical-revolutionary film by Dmitry Frolov, permeated with the romanticism of the revolutionary events of 1917, echoing the moods of August 1991. Since the film was shot the day after the victory over the coup plotters in the USSR in August 1991. All thoughts of the beekeeper - quotations from Lenin's works.

In the Fire

Historical film about the dramatic event in the southern regions of Azerbaijan during the 1917 Soviet Revolution.

Assassin of the Tsar

A new doctor from Moscow arrives at a provincial mental institution. His interest is the peculiarities of the psyche of a patient who believes that he is Yakov Yurovsky, the man who assassinated the last Russian tsar. In the course of their conversations it transpires that the patient is a kind of philosopher, not without a gift for suggestion. In a while the doctor himself falls under his patient’s influence: he tends to relive that fatal night of June 16-17, 1918 when, without any investigation or trial, Tsar Nicholas II, who had recently abdicated, was murdered, together with his wife, daughters and incurably ill heir. Soon the doctor realizes that the tragedy of the last Russian tsar is in part his own tragedy, too...

We the Living, Part One

At 18, the beautiful and intelligent Kira comes to Petersburg as the Communists consolidate power. She rebuffs a cousin who rises in the Party and may remember the slight. She falls in love with Leo, the son of an aristocrat, who gets into political trouble and never gets out.

The World and the Flesh

During the 1917 Russian revolution, a group of artistocrats find themselves in the custody of a brutal Communist revolutionary. He lusts after one of them, a ballerina, and gives her an ultimatum: give in to him or her friends will face the firing squad.

An Optimistic Tragedy

1918 year. A woman commissar has been appointed from the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party to the Russian warship Gromoboi, which is ruled by anarchist sailors. The leader of the ship is the anarchist Vozhak. The Commissioner was instructed to reorganize the naval detachment into the First Sailor Regiment. She faces a difficult task: to win the authority of the sailors and eradicate anarchy. Of the remaining officers on the ship — lieutenant Bering, who served in the tsarist fleet on the battleship "Emperor Paul I". He must become the commander and, together with the sent commissar, lead the regiment to the front in the Black Sea region.

Lenin in October

Commissioned by Josef Stalin to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution, Lenin in October was the first of Russian director Mikhail Romm's tributes to the Marxist visionary who helped orchestrate the insurrection of October, 1917.

The Armchair and the Grand Duchess

A Russian duke who's fallen on hard times tries to recover a stash of jewels hidden inside an armchair, but the chair gets sold at auction to a millionairess and he's forced to marry her in order to retrieve the treasure.

Scarlet Dawn

During the Russian Revolution, a young nobleman and his peasant maid flee from their homeland to Constantinople where they marry and begin a challenging new life.