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.
In August 1945 millions of Japanese are stunned to hear the voice of their Emperor for the first time, as he commands his people to cease all fighting... Read more
In 1941, a 16-year-old aspiring artist and her family are deported to Siberia amidst Stalin's brutal dismantling of the Baltic region. One girl's pass... Read more
Director Akan Satayev's 'Myn Bala' (one thousand boys) is the epic story of a group of young rebels who rose up against a brutal Mongol army occupying... Read more
Sergei Bondarchuk's massive epic production of Tolstoy's masterpiece is remarkable for its production values - it took five years to complete and cost... Read more
This widely acclaimed film is arresting as both an intense drama about a troubling family dynamic and as an allegory about the tension that filled the... Read more
The Ukrainian film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors won almost every, award in sight on the 1964 film festival circuit. But its become even more impo... Read more
On April 12 1961, Soviet fighter pilot and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin blasted off into space not knowing what fate awaited him. He was one of the legendar... Read more
A.k.a. "Sluga Gosudarev". The action takes place at the time of the Swedish-Russian war of 1709. The King of France, Louis XIV, sends two duellists in... Read more
In 1922, Lenin also had said that, "...of all of the arts, for us the cinema was the most important." In 1924, the Proletkult offered Eisenstein, then... Read more
Originally made as an 8-part Russian TV series, "The Bomber" is an action-packed adventure set during WWII, which sees a Soviet aircraft crashing in N... Read more