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Russian Cinema

Early films from the then Soviet Union had a shaky start due to the First World War and the October Revolution in 1917, but Lenin himself and later Stalin recognised the propaganda uses of the medium. At first, with the infrastructure in tatters and virtually no cinemas in which to screen films, shorts expounding communism were carried from place to place often accompanying live speakers. Once Moscow's first cinema was opened at the end of 1921, newsreels became common. But in 1924 Sergei Eisenstein's 'Strike' became the first true Soviet feature. The following year his 'Battleship Potemkin' was launched to great acclaim, highly propagandistic and towing the party line. Tight restrictions on content continued up until Stalin's death in 1953 and it wasn't until the '60s and '70s that seminal Russian film makers like Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergo Paradjanov and Nikita Mikhalkov began to find their own voice. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the largely state-funded film industry all but disappeared and is only now beginning to find its feet once more. A few gems found their way to Alice's shelves from this period, such as 'Burnt By The Sun' (1994), 'Prisoner of the Mountains' (1996), and our one and only Estonian film is to be found in this section, for want of a better home, the darkly humourous 'Darkness in Tallinn' (1993). 2002 saw the release of 'Russian Ark' (pictured), shot in one take, it is the longest unedited film ever made.

Come and See (1985)

8.2/10
Director: Elem Klimov
Starring: Alexei Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Vladas Bagdonas

The thoroughly mesmerising chronicle of the initiation of a young teen (impressively played by Alexei Kravchenko) into the horror and insanity of war,... Read more

Andrei Rublev (1966)

8.2/10
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring: Anatoly Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Grinko

Widely regarded as Tarkovsky's finest film 'Andrei Rublev' charts the life of the great icon painter through a turbulent period of 15th century Russia... Read more

Solaris (1972)

8.1/10
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Juri Jarvet

A mind-bending, metaphysical film about an investigation into why astronauts on a space station situated above the planet Solaris have suffered mental... Read more

Leviathan ( Leviafan ) (2014)

7.6/10
Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev
Starring: Elena Lyadova, Roman Madyanov, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Aleksey Serebryakov

Nominated for an Oscar and winner of the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, 'Leviathan' is a gripping parable of class, faith and corruption... Read more

The Return (2003)

8/10
Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev
Starring: Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko, Natalia Vdovina

Two teenage brothers, living with their mother, discover that their father has returned home after years of absence without a word of explanation. He... Read more

Stalker (1979)

8.1/10
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring: Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, Anatoly Solonitsyn

An extraordinary sci-fi film about an expedition into 'the zone', an eerie no-man's-land created by a meteor strike and depicted as a warped version o... Read more

Koktebel (2003)

7/10
Director: Boris Khlebnikov, Alexei Popogrebsky
Starring: Agrippina Steklova, Igor Chernevich, Vladimir Kucherenko, Gleb Puskepalis

The feature debut from writing/directing team Boris Khlebnikov and Alexei Popogrebsky, this Russian road movie tells the story of a father and son mak... Read more

Russian Ark (2002)

7.4/10
Director: Alexander Sokurov
Starring: Sergei Dreiden, Maria Kuznetsova, Leonid Mozgovoy

Director Alexander Sokurov's ("Mother and Son") audacious cinematic tour-de-force follows an unseen narrator who magically finds himself transported t... Read more

I Am Cuba (1964)

8/10
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov

Unseen by the West for nearly 30 years, this unusual Cuban/Soviet co-production was meant to help train Cuban filmmakers and build support for Castro'... Read more

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

8/10
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Starring: Alexander Antonov, Vladimir Barsky

This landmark film was planned by the Soviet Central Committee to coincide with the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the unsuccessful 1905 Rus... Read more