Actor: Mikhail Vasserbaum

Chekist

Srubov is a part of CHEKA, the secret police Lenin established after the Bolshevik Revolution. They arrest, interview for a minute, try in ten seconds, and execute intellectuals, aristocrats, Jews, clergy, and their families. In the building basement, five people at a time are shot as they stand naked facing wooden doors. No one to remember their last words; no martyrs, just anonymous bodies. Daily, the kangaroo court, the executions, the loading of bodies onto wagons. Srubov is cold, distant, sexually dysfunctional, and a deep thinker, hated by former friends and his family. As he tries to reason the nature of revolution and the purpose of CHEKA, he slowly goes mad.

A Room and a Half

A semi-fictional account of the life of Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, who was forced into American exile in 1972.

Tycoon

During the Gorbachev years, Platon Makovski and his four buddies are university students who jump on the private capitalism movement. Fast-forward 20 years, Platon finds himself the richest man in Russia, having sacrificed his friends to get to the top. But with this cynical rise, comes a brutal fall.

Peculiarities of the National Politics

General Ivolgin, forester Kuzmich, and good-natured Lyova now are going into politics.

Mechanical Suite

Two colleagues go to fetch the body of their co-worker from a neighboring town where that man died unexpectedly. As this person has no kin, the director of the factory chooses to send Markerants and Mityagin to deal with the whole business. And here the adventures begin...