Aleksandr Sokurov - Dukhovnye golosa. Iz dnevnikov voyny. Povestvovanie v pyati chastyakh aka Spiritual Voices (1995)

Quote:
The film develops as the author’s diary, where unbiased narration is dissolved in the lyrical intonation. You watch the real persons in the particular circumstances on the screen. They are Russian frontier–guards on the Tadjik–Afghani border. But it is also a piece of art, where aesthetic laws give the theme and arrange the facts taken from life.

That is why the film begins with the story about Mozart, about death concealing under the poor cover of the daily routine, about music, breaking through this cover and absorbing spiritual voices of the Universe. And that's why the northern landscape is being shown during a long while, motionless and at the same time subtly changing.

Boris Barnet & S. Mardanin - U samogo sinego morya AKA By the Bluest of Seas (1936)

Synopsis:
The sea is at first quite dark for the sailors Aliosha and Yussuf. Adrift, they reach an island where they meet Mashenka, a beautiful girl they both immediately fall in love with...

seagullfilms.com

One of the films revered by French filmmakers such as Godard and Otar Iosseliani, this marvelous picture, a spontaneous and joyful romantic comedy shot at eye-popping locations, stars the delicious Elena Kouzmina as a bouncy island beauty wooed by two young shipwrecked Caspian fisherman. And it's more fun than Alexander Nevsky.

Larisa Shepitko - Ty i ya AKA You and Me (1971)

Peter, a former medical scientist, suddenly quits his cushy job as a doctor at the Russian Embassy in Sweden and returns to Moscow. 3 years ago his team stood on the threshold of a vital break-through in neurosurgery, but the experimental work was cut short when Peter left for Stockholm. Peter tries to pick up the threads of his old life, fails and runs still further away, to a small town in Northern Russia where he takes a job as a district doctor. But the past would not relinquish its hold on him even there.

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?

Andrei Tarkovsky - Andrey Rublyov (1966)

Quote:
Widely recognized as a masterpiece, Andrei Tarkovsky's 205-minute medieval epic, based on the life of the Russian monk and icon painter, was not seen as the director intended it until its re-release over twenty years after its completion. The film was not screened publicly in its own country (and then only in an abridged form) until 1972, three years after winning the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Calling the film frightening, obscure, and unhistorical, Soviet authorities edited the picture on several occasions, removing as much as an entire hour from the original.

Presented as a tableaux of seven sections in black and white, with a final montage of Rublev's painted icons in color, the film takes an unflinching gaze at medieval Russia during the first quarter of the 15th century, a period of Mongol-Tartar invasion and growing Christian influence. Commissioned to paint the interior of the Vladimir cathedral, Andrei Rublev (Anatoli Solonitsyn) leaves the Andronnikov monastery with an entourage of monks and assistants, witnessing in his travels the degradations befalling his fellow Russians, including pillage, oppression from tyrants and Mongols, torture, rape, and plague. Faced with the brutalities of the world outside the religious enclave, Rublev's faith is shaken, prompting him to question the uses or even possibility of art in a degraded world. After Mongols sack the city of Vladimir, burning the very cathedral that he has been commissioned to paint, Rublev takes a vow of silence and withdraws completely, removing himself to the hermetic confines of the monastery.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Avtomobil nabiraet nadezhnost AKA The Automobile Gains in Reliability (1974)

This film was created by Sokurov before or during his VGIK student years for the regional TV of Gorki. He does not consider it a part of his filmography. For its creators, it was just a TV program, and the people who worked on it most often were being given no distinction in the credits. This document of the very origins of Sokurov gives us a notion of his "pre-stylistic" period, where the personality of the future great filmmaker reveals itself in spite of means and circumstances. [from the catalog of Torino Film Festival]

Vladimir Motyl - Beloe solntse pustyni AKA White Sun of the Desert (1970)

One of classics of the Soviet cinema and the most popular film of the Soviet era.

A soldier of the Red Army named Sukhov has been fighting in the Russian Civil War in Russian Asia for many years. Just as he is about to return home to his wife, Sukhov is chosen to guard and protect the harem of a guerilla leader (Abdulla). Abdulla is wanted by the Red Army and left his harem behind because the women hindered him. Sukhov's task proves to be more difficult than he imagined...

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.

Nikita Mikhalkov – Utomlyonnye solntsem 2 aka Burnt by the Sun 2 (2010)

Plot:

Epic film about WWII, a sequel to Burnt by the Sun (1994). Evil Stalin is terrorizing people of Russia while the Nazis are advancing. Russian officer Kotov, who miraculously survived the death sentence in Stalin's Purge, is now fighting in the front lines. His daughter, Nadia, who survived a rape attempt by Nazi soldiers, is now a nurse risking her own life to save others. In the war-torn nation even former enemies are fighting together to defend their land. People stand up united for the sake of victory. The deadly war comes at very high cost: the Nazis are killing people, burning villages, raping women, bombing churches, destroying bridges. Hoping to survive, Kotov and his daughter are having visions of each other, but their dreams fade amidst massive bombardment. Fire and smoke eclipses the sun. The land around becomes lifeless, defenseless and littered with the dead. Then the dead are covered by snow. Life is over. Only a butterfly is flying above the weapons and corpses, alluding to eternity.

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.

Mikhail Karzhukov & Aleksandr Kosyr - Nebo zovyot AKA The Sky Calls (1959)

Quote:
A Soviet scientific expedition is being prepared as the world's first mission to planet Mars. Their space ship Homeland has been built at a space station, where the expedition awaits the command to start. An American ship Typhoon experiencing mechanical problems arrives at the same space station, secretly having the same plans for the conquest of the Red Planet. Trying to stay ahead of Soviets, they start without proper preparation, and soon are again in distress. The Homeland changes course to save the crew of Typhoon. They succeed, but find that their fuel reserves are now insufficient to get to Mars. So Homeland makes an emergency landing on an asteroid "Icarus" passing near Mars, on which they are stranded. After an attempt to send a fuel supply by unmanned rocket fails, another ship Meteor is sent with a cosmonaut on a possibly suicidal mission, to save the stranded cosmonauts.

Nikoloz Sanishvili – Chermeni AKA Chermen (1970)

The film’s main hero is Chermen. An illegitimate son, Chermen is striving to assert his dignity. He is opposed by Dacco, the elder of the Aldar clan, in whose village Chermen lives. Guided by mercenary motives, Dacco strikes a deal with Prince Tsarai. Together, they rob people and then divide the loot between themselves.
By some chance, Chermen learns of the deal and informs his friends about it. At first, he thinks that no one in the Aldar village would believe him, the bastard, and that the plot would remain unexposed. But the friends accept the challenge.

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.

Ivan Pyryev – Svinarka i pastukh AKA They Met in Moscow (1941)

Musical comedy. Herding pigs girl Glasha of the Russian countryside and the shepherd Musaib of Dagestani aul came to Moscow at the agricultural exhibition, meet there and fall in love at first sight. They will leave for a long time, and partial to Glasha fellow villager does not want to so just give the girl a distant opponent.

Sergei Loznitsa - V tumane AKA In the Fog (2012)

Quote:
Western frontiers of the USSR, 1942. The region is under German occupation, and local partisans are fighting a brutal resistance campaign. A train is derailed not far from the village, where Sushenya, a rail worker, lives with his family. Innocent Sushenya is arrested with a group of saboteurs, but the German officer makes a decision not to hang him with the others and sets him free. Rumours of Sushenya’s treason spread quickly, and partisans Burov and Voitik arrive from the forest to get revenge. As the partisans lead their victim through the forest, they are ambushed, and Sushenya finds himself one-to-one with his wounded enemy. Deep in an ancient forest, where there are neither friends nor enemies, and where the line between treason and heroism disappears, Sushenya is forced to make a moral choice under immoral circumstances. —In The Fog official website

Sergei Loznitsa - Artel (2006)

A classic of Russian documentary film he also stamps his typical hallmark on his latest film. Long shots fragmented with fade-outs, a sophisticated composition and the effective use of 35 mm black-and-white film. Loznitsa is able to raise seeming banality to the status of an artistic testimony indirectly reminiscent of the classics of Russian cinematography. On this occasion, he takes his camera along to record an attempt to catch fish in a frozen lake in the middle of the snowy Russian plains. In this harsh natural environment, four young men try to rip from the frozen depths of nature something which will provide them with a livelihood.

Sergei Eisenstein & Grigory Alexandrov - Frauennot - Frauenglück AKA Misery and Fortune of Woman (1929)

Description:
This short film shows the contrast between the good conditions in which a rich woman makes a abortion and the miserable and dangerous condition in which a poor woman has to do an abortion.

Oleg Kovalov - Sergei Eisenstein. Avtobiografiya AKA Sergei Eisenstein: Autobiography (1996)

Quote:
The great Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein, whose Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky, and Ivan the Terrible stand as masterpieces of world cinema, is the subject of this eccentric and puzzling production. Though based on memoirs Eisenstein wrote before his death in 1948, most of this film is barely a documentary at all, but rather a composite of images, many of which are fascinating and arresting. Eisenstein himself was known for startling and memorable images (perhaps the most famous of which is the shot of the baby carriage rolling down the steps in Potemkin), so memorializing him with clips from his own films interspersed with readings from his memoirs seems somewhat appropriate. But the voice-over in Russian (with English subtitles) is quite sparse, and at times the images onscreen, which include clips from Buster Keaton films and Hollywood musicals from the 1930s, are utterly mystifying.. --Robert J. McNamara

Aleksandr Sokurov – Vostochnaya elegiya AKA Oriental Elegy (1996)

Quote:
Oriental Elegy (1996). Visually impressionistic, atmospherically dense, and narratively opaque, Oriental Elegy is the surreal journey of a displaced spirit (Aleksandr Sokurov) as he wanders in the interminable darkness through the temporal landscape of a quaint and isolated feudal-era fishing village. Guided by a series of faintly illuminated rooms, the wandering spirit comes upon ancient souls who take on physical forms as they recount their personal stories of daily existence, loss, and tragedy in the peasant community. Intrigued by his initial visit to a curiously distracted elderly woman, the spirit returns to her home in order to ask a fundamental question - "What is happiness?" - an existential query that is innocently answered with innate humility and accepted unknowingness. Through abstractly textured imagery and indelibly hypnotic dreamscapes, Sokurov composes a metaphoric, sensual, and evocative tone poem on a soul's search for enlightenment and the essential survival of human consciousness.