Sergei Loznitsa - Poselenie AKA The Settlement (2001)

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This visually arresting documentary about a strange community in the Russian countryside, shows residents of a rural settlement seemingly involved in everyday farm work -- harvesting fields, chopping wood, working at a sawmill and maintaining the property. Yet, as the film evolves, the viewer comes to realize that the workers, are in fact, patients. Their daily chores serve only therapeutic purposes. Suffused with the sounds and rhythms of rural life, is the film a parable of post-Soviet society or simply a testament to the importance of nature in modern lives?

Sergei Loznitsa - Predstavleniye AKA Revue (2008)

Sergei Loznitsa has once again scoured the Russian film archives for REVUE, selecting excerpts from newsreels, propaganda films, TV shows and feature films that present an evocative portrait of Soviet life during the 1950s and 1960s. With scenes taken from the length and breadth of the Soviet Motherland, REVUE illustrates industry and agriculture (dam construction, steel plants, Stakhanovite labor competitions, farmland seeded by hand and plowed with horse), political life (local elections, abundant Lenin iconography, speeches by Khrushchev, the threat of capitalist spies), popular culture (a village choir, a dance troupe, a travelling cinema, poetry readings for workers, a propagandistic stage play), and technology (space exploration, astronaut Yuri Gargarin, new industrial development). The film's fascinating flow of disparate scenes representing typical Soviet life of the period is, seen from today's perspective, alternately poignant, funny, and tragic. The cumulative impact reveals a life of hardship, deprivation and seemingly absurd social rituals, but one always inspired by the vision, or illusion, of a communist future. Seen from these dual historical and contemporary perspectives, REVUE is both a nostalgic and instructive look back at a communist past that represents social engineering on a grand, and frightening, scale. (icarus-films)

Sergei Loznitsa - Polustanok aka Train Stop (2000)

Trains travel through the night without stopping. The clatter of the carriages quickly disappears, along with the wail of the locomotive. The people at the station are all asleep. But why are they so exhausted ? And what are they waiting for?

Sergei Loznitsa - Zhizn, osin AKA Life, Autumn (1999)

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What first appear to be photographs of elderly Russian peasants and farmers, becomes an evocative meditation on old Russia and new, a snapshot of a disappearing way of life. As they stand in their work clothes, often with tools by their side, looking into the camera, this remarkable film with poetic rigor, captures a people, a world, that is quickly vanishing.

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So wird aus alltäglichem eine ergreifende Wirkung erzielt, teilt sich der Lebensrhythmus, die Geschichte eines Volkes mit Wärme. Lakonie und Humor mit 'Leben, Herbst' schafft es in einer Kürze alle großen Fragen des menschlichen Lebens zu thematisieren und findet damit, Kulturen übergreifend, einen gemeinsamen Nenner. [MDR Kultur]

Sergei Loznitsa - Fabrika AKA Factory (2004)

The filmmaker shows how a pure form of cinematography can indeed be created within the nitty-gritty of an archaic metal factory.

Semyon Aranovich & Aleksandr Sokurov- Altovaya sonata. Dmitriy Shostakovich aka Sonata for viola (1981)

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A deeply moving and reverent biopic of Soviet composer and pianist Dmitri Shostakovich. It's co-directed by Aleksandr Sokurov ("The Russian Ark") and veteran filmmaker Semyon Aranovich. Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg in 1906 and died in Moscow in 1975. The understated black-and-white biopic follows Shostakovich as a frail young man as seen through photographs and traces his life through personal documents, recorded appearances, and concert performances of his work set against archival footage of daily life in the Soviet Union. It shows him during his glory days of early critical acclaim until his disfavor under Stalin because of his political views and struggle for creative freedom. He was honored in 1958, five years after Stalin's death, by his country, as he was awarded the second Order of Lenin after graciously not accepting it a year earlier in order for the first Order of Lenin to be posthumously awarded to Sergei Prokofiev. He was recognized for his genius in composing the 7th Symphony during the Second World War, which was an uplifting reminder of the war. It opens with the scene set in a besieged Leningrad. Shostakovich's dream was to bring his music to the masses and give his people an appreciation for their rich culture. The title comes about because Shostakovich's "Sonata for Violin" was the only work he composed that he never heard performed. The film, made in 1981, was discovered after it was buried to hide it from the KGB, who at an earlier date banned it.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Chitayem Blokadnuyu Knigu AKA Reading Book Of Blockade (2009)

The lengthy siege of Leningrad during World War II cost a million civilian lives. In Alexander Sokurov's documentary, various people - actors, journalists, students, soldiers - read eyewitness accounts about this 'historic and cultural disaster', to use Sokurovr's words.

Nikita Mikhalkov - 12 aka 12 razgnevannyh muzhchin (2007)

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A loose remake of 12 Angry Men (1957), set in a Russian school in the war-torn republic of Chechnya. 12 jurors are struggling to decide the fate of a Chechen teenager (Apti Magamaev) who allegedly killed his Russian stepfather. The jurors: a racist taxi-driver, a suspicious doctor, a vacillating TV producer, a Holocaust survivor, a flamboyant musician, a cemetery manager, and others represent the fragmented society of modern day Russia. Amidst the battle between Chechens and Russians outside, a stray bird (a touch of New Age cinema) is flying above the jurors heads, alluding to tolerance. Written by Steve Shelokhonov