Secrets Shared with a Stranger (1996)

The Cuckoo

September of 1944, a few days before Finland went out of the Second World War. A chained to a rock Finnish sniper-kamikadze Veikko managed to set himself free. Ivan, a captain of the Soviet Army, arrested by the Front Secret Police 'Smersh', has a narrow escape. They are soldiers of the two enemy armies. A Lapp woman Anni gives a shelter to both of them at her farm. For Anni they are not enemies, but just men.

Pawn Sacrifice

American chess champion Bobby Fischer prepares for a legendary match-up against Russian Boris Spassky.

Gutland

Early one summer morning a young man, with a secret stashed away in a duffel bag, emerges from the forest. In a nearby village he asks around for work, but the farmers, suspicious to the point of hostility, are not very forthcoming. Only when Lucy, the mayor’s unruly daughter, takes a liking to him, does the village change its attitude: he is promptly offered a job as a farmhand and a caravan to live in. As time passes and he is gradually integrated into the community, it emerges that he’s not the only one with a past to hide. Something sinister is lurking under the immaculate surface of this picturesque little world - and it is slowly drawing him in.

Final Score

When a stadium is seized by a group of heavily armed criminals during a major sporting event, an ex-soldier must use all his military skills to save both the daughter of a fallen comrade and the huge crowd unaware of the danger.

Reds

An account of the revolutionary years of the legendary American journalist John Reed, who shared his adventurous professional life with his radical commitment to the socialist revolution in Russia, his dream of spreading its principles among the members of the American working class, and his troubled romantic relationship with the writer Louise Bryant.

Operation "Wedding"

Leningrad, 1970. A group of young Jewish dissidents plot to hijack an empty plane and escape the USSR. Caught by the KGB a few steps from boarding, they were sentenced to years in the gulag and two were sentenced to death; they never got on a plane. 45 years later, filmmaker Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov reveals the compelling story of her parents, leaders of the group, "heroes" in the West but "terrorists" in Russia, even today.

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

This is a life story of three girlfriends from youth to autumn ages. Their dreams and wishes, love, disillusions...

Russian Ark

A ghost and a French marquis wander through the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, encountering scenes from many different periods of its history.

The Fall of the Rebel Angels

Who is the mysterious stranger Cecilia met on the street? Why is he suspicious of everyone? She is happily married, has a lovely child and a good job: yet she decides to join him and to become his lover, sharing his destiny right up to its tragic conclusion.

Cargo 200

While returning to Leningrad from a visit to his brother, Professor Artyom's car breaks down and he finds assistance at an isolated farmhouse occupied by Alexey, his wife, a Vietnamese laborer, and a stranger who wanders around the farm. When his car is repaired, Artyom leaves, drunk on moonshine, and students Valera and Angelika arrive. After Valera gets drunk, the stranger abducts Angelika.

Final Assignment

An intrepid television journalist sent to cover the Canadian prime minister's visit to the Soviet Union has trouble sticking to her assignment when she unearths a horrific experimental drug trial involving children. Determined to prepare a video that will show the world exactly what's been going on, she dodges the long arm of the KGB and falls into bed with a Communist bureaucrat.

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…

The Last Station

A historical drama that illustrates Russian author Leo Tolstoy's struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things. The Countess Sofya, wife and muse to Leo Tolstoy, uses every trick of seduction on her husband's loyal disciple, whom she believes was the person responsible for Tolstoy signing a new will that leaves his work and property to the Russian people.

Say a Word for the Poor Hussar

The small town agog Hussars entry. Love between cornet and the young actress suddenly faces intrigue made by a St. Petersburg bureaucrat. The actress father dies after being involved in this game and perspectives look dark... But evil will eventually be defeated by the nobility, loyalty and love.

The Pokrovsky Gates

Stories from the lives of the tenants of the Moscow's communal apartment: Kostik, who is a college student, lives with his aunt while studying; Arkady Velyurov who is a performing artist; Khobotovs, who are a divorced couple; and Sava, who is Margarita Khobotov's new fiancé. All these people live in one apartment and their lives constantly touch each other's.

Pale Rider

A mysterious preacher protects a humble prospector village from a greedy mining company trying to encroach on their land.

Sputnik

At the height of the Cold War, a Soviet spacecraft crash lands after a mission gone awry, leaving the commander as its only survivor. After a renowned Russian psychologist is brought in to evaluate the commander’s mental state, it becomes clear that something dangerous may have come back to Earth with him…

Erbsen auf halb 6

It all starts with a bang. The car breaks through the crash barrier and falls off the bridge. The lights go out. After that, he is not able to see anymore. His optic nerve is severed, from now on the young stage-director Jakob is blind. His life will change and nothing will ever be the same. Jakob cannot handle the idea of never being able to see again and screams at the only woman who is able and willing to help him, Lily. A rehabilitation teacher, she helps the blind deal with the darkness. Lily has been living with it since birth, she too is blind.

The Dark Valley

The Alps, late 19th century. Greider, a mysterious lone rider who claims to be a photographer, arrives at an isolated lumber village, despotically ruled by a family clan, asking for winter accommodation.

An American Tail

A young mouse named Fievel and his family decide to migrate to America, a "land without cats," at the turn of the 20th century. But somehow, Fievel ends up in the New World alone and must fend off not only the felines he never thought he'd have to deal with again but also the loneliness of being away from home.

Checkpoint

A group Russian soldiers is send to an outpost to guard the area. They pass the day patroulling the area, while being shot at from the forest. They never know if the civillions are hostile or friendly to them.

Tuck Everlasting

Teenager Winnie Foster is growing up in a small rural town in 1914 with her loving but overprotective parents, but Winnie longs for a life of greater freedom and adventure.

Crime and Punishment

John Simm stars in this adaptation of Dostoyevsky's tragic masterpiece - a profound drama of redemption and a thrilling detective story of the soul.

War and Peace

Napoleon's tumultuous relations with Russia including his disastrous 1812 invasion serve as the backdrop for the tangled personal lives of two aristocratic families.

As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me

The German soldier Clemens Forel - determined to be reunited with his beloved family - makes a dramatic escape through bitter cold winters, desolate landscapes, and life threatening ventures from a Siberian labor camp after World War II. 8000 miles and three endless years of uncertainty later, he is finally about to reach his destination... An edge of your seat drama that celebrates the power of the human spirit and the force of will, while inspired and impowered by love.

Panfilov's 28 Men

USSR, Late November, 1941. Based on the account by reporter Vasiliy Koroteev that appeared in the Red Army's newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, shortly after the battle, this is the story of Panifilov's Twenty-Eight, a group of twenty-eight soldiers of the Red Army's 316th Rifle Division, under the command of General Ivan Panfilov, that stopped the advance on Moscow of a column of fifty-four Nazi tanks of the 11th Panzer Division for several days. Though armed only with standard issue Mosin-Nagant infantry rifles and DP and PM-M1910 machine guns, all useless against tanks, and with wholly inadequate RPG-40 anti-tank grenades and PTRD-41 anti-tank rifles, they fight tirelessly and defiantly, with uncommon bravery and unwavering dedication, to protect Moscow and their Motherland.

PQ17: An Arctic Convoy Disaster

Jeremy Clarkson tells the dramatic story of the Arctic convoys of the Second World War, from Russia to the freezing Arctic Ocean.

The Man Who Cried

A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.

Anna Karenina

Stefan and Dolly Oblonsky have had a spat and Stefan has asked his sister, Anna Karenina, to come down to Moscow to help mend the rift. Anna's companion on the train from St. Petersburg is Countess Vronsky who is met at the Moscow station by her son. Col. Vronsky looks very dashing in his uniform and it's love at first sight when he looks at Anna and their eyes meet.

The Scarlet Empress

During the 18th century, German noblewoman Sophia Frederica, who would later become Catherine the Great, travels to Moscow to marry the dimwitted Grand Duke Peter, the heir to the Russian throne. Their arranged marriage proves to be loveless, and Catherine takes many lovers, including the handsome Count Alexei, and bears a son. When the unstable Peter eventually ascends to the throne, Catherine plots to oust him from power.

Sorceress

A young woman raised in the US returns to her birth country in Eastern Europe after a devastating tragedy. Questioning her sanity and her sexuality, she starts believing she possesses supernatural powers.

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.

The Barber of Siberia

Douglas is a foreign entrepreneur, who ventures to Russia in 1885 with dreams of selling a new, experimental steam-driven timber harvester in the wilds of Siberia. Jane is his assistant. On her travels, she meets two men who would change her life forever: a handsome young cadet Andrej Tolstoy with whom she shares a fondness for opera, and the powerful General Radlov who is entranced by her beauty and wants to marry her.

Silent Souls

Miron Alekseevich, director of a paper and pulp mill, goes to bury his wife Tanya in the place where they once spent their honeymoon. He goes not alone, but with a photographer named Stork, to whom he tells touching details of his life with Tanya. The narrative weaves together the memories of the characters, as well as the rituals and beliefs of the Meri people, a small Finnish tribe that once lived in the Northern Volga region and dissolved among the Russians.

1612: Chronicles of the Dark Time

The czar of Russia has died and a power vacuum has developed. This period in the late 16th and early 17th century has been called "The Time of Troubles." There are many impostors who claim to the right to rule, but there's only one heir, the Czarina Kseniya Godunova. She has married a Polish military leader who wants to claim the Russian throne in her name so he can rule all of Russia. As the Poles move in on Moscow in an attempt to install the czarina on the throne, Andrei, a serf with a life-long infatuation of the czarina attempts to save her from her brutal Polish husband.

Crime and Punishment

A man is haunted by a murder he's committed.

Rasputin

Into an era seething with war and revolution, a man comes with an incredible power to heal a nation...or destroy it. Based on the true story of one of the most powerful and mysterious figures in Russian history.

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.

Wayward

After a meet-cute in a bar, Dawn and Micah's road trip to Portland turns into a nightmare when they're hunted by an infamous serial killer known as the Mechanic Maniac.

Invasion, U.S.A.

A group of American witness the deadly invasion of the United States by the Soviet Union.

Alexander Nevsky

When German knights invade Russia, Prince Alexander Nevsky must rally his people to resist the formidable force. After the Teutonic soldiers take over an eastern Russian city, Alexander stages his stand at Novgorod, where a major battle is fought on the ice of frozen Lake Chudskoe. While Alexander leads his outnumbered troops, two of their number, Vasili and Gavrilo, begin a contest of bravery to win the hand of a local maiden.