Kira Muratova - Lyst do Ameryky AKA Letter To America (1999)

Description: The short is made in a typical Muratova style that merges surrealism and reality into a mesmerizing act full of understatement and metaphor.

Some trivia: this is nominally Muratova's first short. However, she herself considers it her fourth - she prefers to think of her Three Stories as three short films instead of a single feature.

The film was made with no budget whatsoever - all Muratova was given were the camera and the film stock. None of the actors were paid. The rumor has it that the film was shot in Muratova's own apartment.

Kira Muratova - The Tuner (Nastroyshchik) (2004)

from review @ Kinokultura:

At the heart of Kira Muratova’s newest film, The Tuner (Nastroishchik, 2004), is her characteristic and enduring love of predation—predation for its own sake. Of course, any talk of “the heart of Muratova’s work” is a judgment of anatomy rather than sentiment, as any admirer would attest. With The Tuner, she has produced an extraordinary new film that offers a complex assessment of the human subject, civilization, and the creative act.

Kira Muratova - Uvlecheniya AKA Passions (1994)

Michael Atkinson:

Passions (1994) has a slightly different program: Accompany a pack of extroverted, sub-Fellini nutlogs to a horse farm, where they prance, vamp, and blabber about horses, love, and life. "It's like somebody nudges me and whispers: Ask them—will they bear it?" one character says, summarizing Muratova's strategy. Photographed in uncharacteristically lush colors, Passions won an indulgent Russian Oscar.

Andrei Zvyagintsev - Elena (2011)

Elena and Vladimir are an older couple, they come from different backgrounds. Vladimir is a wealthy and cold man, Elena comes from a modest milieu and is a docile wife. They have met late in life and each one has children from previous marriages. Elena's son is unemployed, unable to support his own family and he is constantly asking Elena for money. Vladimir's daughter is a careless young woman who has a distant relationship with her father. A heart attack puts Vladimir in hospital, where he realizes that his remaining time is limited. A brief but somehow tender reunion with his daughter leads him to make an important decision: she will be the only heiress of his wealth. Back home he announces it to Elena. Her hopes to financially help her son suddenly vanish. The shy and submissive housewife then comes up with a plan to give her son and grandchildren a real chance in life. (Cannes Film Festival)

Nikolaï Ekk - Putyovka v zhizn aka Road to Life (1931) (DVD)

Young hobos are brought to a new camp to become good Soviet citizens. This camp works without any guards, and it works well. But crooks kill one of the young people when they try to damage the newly build railroad to that camp. Written by Stephan Eichenberg

Dinara Asanova - Ne Bolit Golova u Dyatla AKA Woodpeckers Don't Get Headaches (1975)

Quote:
Two 14-year-olds experience the first pangs of romantic love in the midst of their last moments of childhood. Sensitively told, this film conveys a sense of life as it is lived among that age-group, and is unusual because it does not bear a heavy party stamp. This is the first feature film for director {$Dinara Asanova}, who was much-respected in the Soviet Union for making realistic films about young people. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Vladimir Polkovnikov & Leonid Amalrik - Pavlinij Hvost AKA A Peacock's Tail (1946)

Synopsis: On the motives of K. Chukovskogo's same fairy tale. It tells us about an envious bear who demanded from doctor Ajbolit to sew to him a peacock tail and went for a walk to the wood. The peacock tail gives out to hunters where the bear is.

Vasili Pichul - Malenkaya Vera AKA Little Vera (1988)

------------ Plot Synopsis allmovie.com -----------------------
The title character of the Russian Little Vera is a headstrong teenage girl, played by Natalya Negoda. To the dismay of her parents, Vera lives only for the moment, making no provision for her future. She'd rather hang out at local cafes in garish makeup and provocative clothing. A chance meeting with handsome student Sergei (Andrei Sokolov) develops into a sexual relationship. Her parents send out Vera's brother (Alexander Alexeyev-Negreba) to talk some sense into her, which proves to be doubly dicey when it turns out that the brother is an old acquaintance of the rebellious Sergei. Vera lies, saying that she's gotten pregnant by Sergei, so he obligingly marries her and moves in with her family, which serves only to make matters worse, as Vera's drunken father (Yuri Nazarov) ends up stabbing his son-in-law. Persuaded to lie about the incident to keep her father out of jail, Vera takes her family's side. A last-minute tragedy is barely averted, but the audience gets the distinct feeling that Vera's problems with her family in particular and her life in general are far from over.