Lev Kuleshov - Velikiy uteshitel aka The Great Consoler (1933)

The Great Consoler is Lev Kuleshov’s most personal film reflecting both the facts of his life and his thoughts about the place of the artist in contemporary reality. It was the only film in the Soviet cinema of those years that raised the question of what role a creative person played in society.

The film takes place in America in 1899, and in its principal plot depicts Bill Porter, who is the great consoler of the title, in prison. His writing skills earn him privileges from the governor and he is spared the inhumane treatment meted out to other prisoners. Porter is very much aware of the brutality around him but, mindful of his better conditions, refuses to write about prison life. He prefers to console his less-well-treated friends, and indeed all his readers, with excessively romantic fantasies in which good invariably triumphs.

Kira Muratova - Dolgie provody AKA A Long Goodbye (1971)

It is a great film by a great director.Kira Muratova has never been given her due in the Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.In the "Long Good Bye" she depicts a seemingly banal story of a jealous and possessive mother (brilliantly acted by Zinaida Sharko) and her poor aloof and lonely son (the only cinematic role by the talented O. Vladimirsky). The story - which is nothing extraordinary in itself - grows into the wonderful and frightening analysis of alienation between genders and generations on the background of the even more frighteningly bleak and dehumanized Soviet reality.Kira Muratova shows the tiny details of everyday Soviet life,and, again , banal as they are ,they are a hair-raising horror.The dialogue is deliberately laconic and void of any sense, showing the ever-growing people's inability to communicate and understand each other.The sound track ( by another under-estimated talent, Oleg Karavaichuk)adds to the atmosphere of hopeless and meaningless existence.Of course,Sasha (the name of the protagonist),will leave his despotic ( but loving!) mother sooner or later, but where for? (c) Author: drbagrov from Taiwan

Eldar Ryazanov - Sluzhebnyy roman aka Office Romance (1977)

Anatoli Yefremovich Novoseltsev works in a statistics institution, whose director is an unattractive and bossy woman. An old friend of his, Yuri Grigorievich Samokhvalov, who gets appointed assistant director of the institution, wants to make Novoseltsev the head of the department but encounters objections from Ludmila Prokopievna Kalugina, the director. Samokhvalov then advises Novoseltsev to lightly hit on the boss. Ironically, Novoseltsev and Kalugina fall in love with each other...

Sergei M. Eisenstein - Bronenosets Potyomkin AKA Battleship Potemkin [2005 Restored Version] (1925)

The Battleship Potemkin (1925), accompanied by a new arrangement of Edmund Meisel’s orchestral score, which Eisenstein himself authorized for the film’s Berlin premiere in 1926. The Battleship Potemkin was recognized from the start as a landmark work both for its innovative use of montage and for its sheer power as propaganda. In particular, the “Odessa steps” sequence is arguably the single most famous and widely quoted passage in the history of film. But in a sense The Battleship Potemkin has been the victim of its own effectiveness. Reissued over the years in various censored and reedited versions, Eisenstein’s great vision has not been seen for several decades in anything like what the director likely intended. This new version, overseen by the film archivist and historian Enno Patalas, attempts to reconstruct, as closely as possible, the film as it was presented in Moscow during its initial release.

Agasi Babayan - Dersu Uzala (1961)

This is little known the first version of "Dersu Uzala" from 1961.
The famous Kurosawa's "Dersu Uzala" is a remake made 15 years later, in 1975.

SYNOPSIS:
Dersu Uzala is a 1961 Soviet film, adapted from the books of Vladimir Arsenyev, about his travels in Russian Far East with a native trapper, Dersu Uzala.

The film was produced by Mosnauchfilm, directed by Agasi Babayan with screenwriter Igor Bolgarin and featuring Adolf Shestakov and Kasym Zhakibayev.

The film won the Golden Wolf at the 1961 Bucharest Film Festival.

Vasili Pichul - Malenkaya Vera AKA Little Vera (1988) (DVD)

In 1988 the first Soviet erotic film appeared as a symbol of perestroika. The scenes rather moderate for the genre were shocking for the domestic audiences. On the day of premiere the crowd around Moscow Film House was held back by the police.

The film enjoyed international commercial success. Natalia Negoda toured half of the world with the film, she co-starred the Oscar Awards ceremony, and was the first Russian actress to appear in Playboy. The slogan “From Russia with love” became known ever since.

Vera lives in a seaside town. Being kind and sensitive, down-to-earth and passionate, she can’t find her way, she doesn’t know what to do with her freedom, her youth and her beauty. She no more understands her drinking father and her mother who is just tired of life. The aimless being is suffocating for her; she needs love and happiness, which, East or West, not everyone can get…

Mikhail Kalatozov - Letyat zhuravli AKA The Cranes Are Flying (1957) (DVD)

The triumphant success of this film started with its winning the first prize at the Cannes festival in 1958, where an excellent acting by Tatiana Samoilova was also recognized. After that the picture was welcomed in numerous world’s movie theatres. This is a story of love that could not be destroyed even by war. Boris is felled by an enemy’s bullet in action. Veronica is devastated: she has lost her lover, her parents, her home. As an act of despair, she attempts to find a new family for herself, but only loses her self-respect. She is finally redeemed by rescuing a little boy from being run down by a car. She finds strength to continue living, refusing to believe that Boris is dead. Veronica would not stop waiting for him. Life for her is love, and its loss is equivalent to death…

Victor A. Turin - Turksib [+Extras] (1929)

Turksib: bold and exhilarating, Turksib charts the building of the Turkestan-Siberian railway. Presented in the English version prepared in 1930 by John Grierson, with an evocative new score by Guy Bartell (Bronnt Industries Kapital).