Nikita Mikhalkov - Bez svideteley AKA Without Witness AKA In Private [+Extras] (1983)

Synopsis:
Without Witness is an unflinchingly intimate and wickedly plotted two-actor tour de force pitting a divorced couple against each other and themselves.

Eldar Ryazanov - Vokzal dlya dvoikh AKA Railway Station For Two (1983)

Quote:
Platon Ryabinin, a pianist, is traveling by train to a distant town of Griboedov to visit his father. He gets off to have lunch during a twenty minute stop at Zastupinsk railway station. He meets Vera, a waitress, after he refuses to pay her for the disgusting food he doesn't even touch and misses his train due to police investigation of the incident. His passport is then accidentally taken away from him by Andrei, Vera's fiancé, and his money is stolen as he waits for the next train to Griboedov. Vera learns that Platon is about to get sentenced and sent to prison in the Far East for a car accident he isn't guilty for. During the few days that Platon has to spend in Zastupinsk he and Vera develop feelings for each other...

Sergei Solovyov - Chuzhaya belaya i ryaboy AKA The Stray White and the Speckled (1986)

Quote:
In a poor provincial town, the ragamuffin boys are frenziedly drilled for combat, and at nights the local elite, gathered in a pool room, boasts of fictitious biographies, while bands of boys amuse themselves with bloody fights on trashy vacant plots… One of the most vivid staples of the postwar childhood were pigeons. They could be bought, sold or stolen. One day a beautiful white dove appeared over the town. Risking his life, Ivan caught the White. And immediately became the target of the “pigeon” mafia…

Vitali Kanevsky - Zamri, umri, voskresni! AKA Freeze Die Come to Life (1990)

Quote:
"Freeze-Die-Come to Life," a first film by Vitaly Kanevski, offers a stark look at growing up in the frozen wastes of the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. A largely autobiographical work, it is the sweetly grim story of a couple of street-smart kids in the mining town of Suchan. A Russian variation on India's "Salaam Bombay," the film both celebrates and buries youthful innocence.

An engaging pair of nonprofessionals, Pavel Nazarov and Dinara Drukarova, are Valerka and Galiya, playmates who manage a semblance of childhood despite their sorry circumstances. And they don't make circumstances any sorrier than in Suchan, with its towering ash heaps and streets oozing raw sewage. Ragged and hungry, Valerka and Galiya sell hot tea, a ruble a cup, to the downcast miners, the one-legged veterans and the nickel-a-night whores.

Isaakas Fridbergas - Kukolka (1988)

Kukolka" tells the story of a young Russian gymnastics star who is forced to return to the life of an ordinary teenage girl after an injury prevents her from competing. As the film unfolds, the audience is drawn into the damaged psyche of the girl and the world that shaped her. The story is dark, intense, and ultimately disquieting; it draws you in, horrifies you, and keeps you thinking long after the superb finale. A film that is difficult to forget.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Spasi i Sokhrani aka Save and Protect (1989)

Quote:
A retelling of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary as a surreal story of universal suffering, the film emphasizes the heroine's internal transformation as she slowly loses her grip on reality. Her erotic fascination with rich clothing and her almost childish desire to seduce and to be lost in passion is brilliantly contrasted with the small-town life that leaves Emma tragically isolated in her passionate attempt to bridge the gap between spirituality and sensuality.

Aleksandr Zarkhi - Dvadtsat shest dney iz zhizni Dostoevskogo AKA 26 Days in the Life of Dostoyevsky (1981)

Twenty-Six Days in the Life of Dostoyevsky was entered on February 16th at the 1981 Berlin Film Festival to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Dostoyevsky's death on February 9th, 1881, and won a "Best Actor" award for Anatoly Solonitsyn as Dostoyevsky. Solonitsyn was a favorite actor in Andrei Tarkovsky's films, and this was to be his penultimate role. This brief imaginary period in the famed Russian writer's life encapsulates one of his darker moments in 1866. At that time he was still a relatively unknown writer whose first widely acclaimed work, Crime and Punishment, was just on the horizon. His life was at a very low ebb as he struggled with debts he could not pay, and as he fought depression over the loss of his wife to tuberculosis, and the death of his brother, who was very close to him. His first literary journal had to be scrapped because of political reasons, and the second venture needed funding. The police come to see him, sent by his publisher who is demanding recompense for debts overdue. Desperate to escape the pressure on all sides, Dostoyevsky decides to undertake the impossible and write the story of The Gambler in 26 days, thereby satisfying the debt to the publisher at least.

Donatella Baglivo - Tarkovsky's Cinema + Interviews (1987)

Broadcast on BBC2 Arena, 13 March 1987. Contains interview footage with Tarkovsky as he discusses each of his seven major films. He also talks about his world-view and
his philosophy of filmmaking. The film also includes footage of a Tarkovsky lecture to
young film students in which he expresses his thoughts on modern cinema.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Krug vtoroy AKA The Second Circle (1990)

Quote:
A solitary figure trudges through the inclement weather of a vast, remote Siberian wilderness. An unyielding gust of wind brings the young man (Pyotr Aleksandrov) to his knees as he attempts to avert the caustic, sustained force of the snowstorm, momentarily obscuring him from view, erased from the harsh and desolate landscape. The stark, monochromatic image of the film then cuts to an ironically appropriate impersonal and nondescript official title sequence, as the premature sound of a knock on a door seemingly intrudes on the necessity to present information on the film's certification. It is a subtle reminder of life's evolving process: the intrusive nature and unexpected inevitability of death. The film reopens to a jarring, oddly lit image of the gaunt young man standing by the foot of his father's bed in a cramped and squalid apartment. The dispatched medical technicians dispassionately confirm his father's death from natural causes, but explain that they cannot issue a death certificate, pragmatically remarking "You should have placed him in a hospital. Everything would have been easier then." Left alone in theapartment, the son compassionately observes his father's inanimate countenance before preparing his father's body for burial: selecting his best suit, bathing him in the snow in the absence of running water in the apartment, transporting his father's body to the outpatient clinic for a death certificate examination. Without knowing the actual cause of death, the doctor suggests a beaurocratically expedient determination of cancer, rationalizing that "now everything is considered cancer." Having been issued a death certificate, the son then meets with the undertaker (Nadezhda Rodnova), an abrasive and insensitive businesswoman who is quick to assess the family's limited means and treats the overwhelmed young man with disrespect and open hostility, especially as the financially strapped son begins to question some ancillary costs included in the itemized funeral bill. As the dutiful son continues to encounter emotional isolation, antipathy, and an impersonal commodification of the burial process, can he restore the sanctity of the ritual and retain the dignity of his beloved father's memory?

Vladimir Potapov - Posrednik AKA The Mediator (1990)

Quote:
Morning of a silent provincial small town. The sleepy city is exposed silent to capture alien a landing. Newcomers are installed in people, destroying the person and subordinating a body to the new carrier. It is last fantastic film made in the USSR. 1990 - last year before disintegration of the Union.

Sergei Bodrov - S.E.R. - Svoboda eto rai AKA Freedom is Paradise (1989)

SYNOPSIS:

13-year-old Sasha finds himself the unwilling resident of a grim reform school after the death of his mother. He sets off on a 1,000 mile odyssey to a gulag-style high security prison, seeking the father he has never met.

Quote:
Before Bodrov became „big business“ he made quite a few CHERNUKHA-movies about the dark side of the Soviet union. This is the internationally best known!
Winner of the Grand Prix des Ameriques at the Montreal International Film Festival and the "Wolfgang Staudte Award" at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The first Russian movie to actually film inside Russian prisons and reformatories. Also the first Film of Sergej Bodrov jr. He appeared on screen only for a few minutes, playing a minor lawbreaker waiting for a decision concerning his destiny.

Yakov Segel - Inoplanetyanka AKA Extraterrestrial Girl (1984)

Extraterrestrial Girl visited Earth.
Inventor Blinkov in love with her. His love is awakened in her new emotions and feelings.
She realized that Blinkov can not live in a different world.
And she leaves the Earth with sadness and loneliness.

Aleksandr Rogozhkin - Karaul (1990)

Synopsis (courtesy of the two IMDB comments):

Very cinematic Russian tale of alienation and lost identity
I saw this film on a local government television station in Australia called SBS which played it at midnight. There's something very beautiful about this film which despite being set amidst the cold, harsh landscape of a desolate Russian territory it features the vitally honest, wan, lost eyes of the lead actor (whose name I can't recall regrettably) whose vivid sense of alienation was extremely memorable. Its a B&W film about a military guard who finds himself lost amidst his fellow guards' corruption and his own painful sense of duty versus his sense of goodness. Its a classic, familiar storyline but the use of black and white film is extremely powerful. It also contains a homo-erotic theme - obvious in parts like the shower-room scene in which the lead characters nakedness offers both symbolic proof of his feeling of emptiness but also the sad truth that even reduced to nakedness his alienation from fellow guards is unbreakable. Throughout this film the sad beauty is haunting but there are some strong moments of violence. This is a film filled with silences in which the eyes are very much windows to the soul. I found myself quietly reflective after viewing this film.

Aleksandr Sokurov – Skorbnoye beschuvstviye aka Anaesthesia Psychica Dolorosa aka Mournful Unconcern (1987)

Quote:
Mournful Unconcern (Russian: Скорбное бесчувствие, translit. Skorbnoye beschuvstviye) is the third produced film by Alexander Sokurov, completed in 1983, but the fourth released one, as it was banned by Soviet authorities until perestroika in 1987. The film, set during World War I, is inspired by Bernard Shaw's play Heartbreak House. Professional actors (Zamansky, Osipenko, Sokolova and others) were used alongside amateur actors, like in most early Sokurov films, and many of the trademarks of his cinematographic style were already apparent.

Igor Alejnikov & Gleb Alejnikov - Tractors and other shorts (1984 - 1987)

From an article by Natasha Drucbek-Meyer:

Quote:
Russian Parallel Cinema is a unique tradition. It appeared in the Soviet Union in the beginning of the 80s and existed as if there were no strong system of official film. It appeared when world experimental film had 50 years history, but never gave a glance at it.

In the end of the 80s, Parallel Cinema came into fashion, as a part of underground culture. The next decade started with strong desire to bury it, as a part of perestroika fashion. Today the third generation of Parallel Cinema is active. <...>

Social identification of the Parallel Cinema group of film and video makers started in underground and close to CINE FANTOM (historically incorrect name) magazine, the first and only Russian independent selfprinted magazine devoted to cinema. It was founded in Moscow in 1986 by Igor Aleinikov and existed until 1991.

In 1987 the first CINE FANTOM festival was held in Moscow. Since 1995 the CINE FANTOM club exists. If you type you"ll find the CINE FANTOM site. If you type in net search "Russian film", you"ll find the CINE FANTOM site again.

Nikita Mikhalkov - Bez svideteley AKA In Private (1983)

It is the story of two people who once loved each other. He thinks he still loves her, but she understands, after nine years, that she doesn't love him and that she cares about somebody else now. It is a very intense movie. The action takes place in one single afternoon, in a communist apartment, and it is focused on these two people. Actually, all the other characters are not physically present and they appear only through photos or phone calls. It is as if that flat is a place where you cannot hide from yourself. He sees in her the simple life that he could have had and the happiness that he gave up in order to climb the social ladder. When he realizes that he had lost her, he tries to prolong her unhappiness. But, after all these years of waiting and suffering, she is mature enough not to fall in his trap. She sees in him the involvement, the indecision, the hypocrisy. He wanted so much of his life, but in the end he is left with his shallow accomplishments. He asks himself whether life can be so simple and so real like the life of his ex-wife. Because it is so concentrated, the movie makes you think of the essence of life and love and about what one has to do in order not to waste one's life. This symbol of the essence of life appears in one of her lines, as 'the inner song.' She says that all that one has to do in life in order to be happy is to do everything according to one's inner song ... (comment from imdb.com)

Aleksey Uchitel - Rok (1988)

From Rockfilm.ru
Rock
It became a cult movie for an entire generation. And it’s significance only increases as the years pass. Rock musicians who were the founders of contemporary rock culture are captured here in their youth: giants such as Boris Grebenshchikov, Yuri Shevchuk, Viktor Tsoi, Oleg Garkusha, and Anton Adasinsky. “Rock” is a film about fate and about music; it is the portrait of a generation. Director Uchitel observes his characters up close, and offers up the same unique opportunity to his audience.

Yuli Raizman - Chastnaya Zhizn AKA Private Life (1982)

Description:
About a difficult period of life of big economic executive Sergey Abrikosov who had nothing to do after he retired from his job.

Igor Dobrolyubov - Belye Rosy AKA White Dew (1983)

Quote:
Fyodor Hodas, a three wars veteran, a respected man in his village of White Dews, is a long time widower and a father of three grown sons. The oldest son is too practical, the youngest is too cheerful, and the middle one is working far away from home. But the old man worries for all his sons, but especially - for the youngest, who is an airhead.

Leonid Kvinikhidze - Drug aka Friend (1987)

IMDB User Review:

very impressive macabre and grotesque drama - or should I say tragedy
17 April 2000 | by FFC (Krasnoyarsk, Russia) –

Even in Russia where alcoholism is a national scourge and - to say so - national art's topic - there are not many movies that shows with such vividness and strenghth all the hell and total chaos and insanity of the life of a alco-path. You must see this man, his flat which looks like Hell landscape and his doings that are caricature and horrible at the same time - REALLY horrible since that man ends violating moral law... And betrayal of a friend - the only being sympathized him and one sent to save him - plunged this man into "outer darkness where is weeping and gnashing of teeth". Still the man is not evil in himself - he's possessed. And in the moments of sobriety his suffering are sharp. One of the best works of splendid Sergei Shakurov. Also the film is notable as animal movie - the spectator is just completely charmed by this second figure in the story - Newfoundland dog called Drug (Friend)... The songs and poetry by Alexander Rosenbaum also worth noting