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.
Set in 1992, during the growing conflict between Georgia and Abkhazian separatists in the wake of the Soviet Union's dissolution, this compassionate t... Read more
Elena (Nadezhda Markina) and Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov) come from very different backgrounds. Vladimir is a wealthy, cold man, while his submissive wif... Read more
The film opens in a Dickensian orphanage in Russia, a fascinating miniature world presided over by a hierarchy of orphans. The daily routine is broken... Read more
Set against the spectacular, otherworldly landscape of the windswept Arctic Circle, writer/director Alexei Popogrebsky's multi-award winning psycholog... Read more
Exploring the rise of one of the world's most feared and fearless warriors, the story of Genghis Khan is still a controversial one. In the West his na... Read more
In 14th Century Russia two warring factions of vampires called a delicate truce. Overshadowing this peace is an ancient prophecy, one that foretells o... Read more
Veronica and Boris are blissfully in love, until the eruption of World War II tears them apart. Boris is sent to the front lines... and then communica... Read more
Still living under the same roof, the Moscow couple of Boris and Zhenya is in the terrible final stages of a bitter divorce. Under those circumstances... Read more
A.k.a. "Progulka". Olya (Irina Pegova) steps out of a luxurious car and begins a stroll through the streets of St Petersburg, striking up an acquainta... Read more
Kurdish filmmaker Hiner Saleem earned critical comparisons to Fellini, Kusturica, Iosseliani, and Kaurismaki with this breakout comedy. A whimsical, f... Read more