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.

Mikhail Kalatozov - Letyat zhuravli AKA The Crane's are Flying (1957)

Veronica and Boris are walking in the streets of Moscow and they love each other. Veronica is laughing, cause they are happy together this morning. They see some cranes in the sky. When arriving to Veronica's house they talk about a rendezvous at the bank of the river. And the 2nd World War begins in Moscow. Boris works in a factory and he hasn't got time to speak with Veronica. He has to go to the war ...

Yuriy Norshteyn - Yozhik v tumane aka Hedgehog in the Fog (1975)

Plot / Synopsis
Hedgehog is on his way to visit Bear cub, to sit and count the stars, their nightly ritual. On the way however, he is distracted by the sight of a beautiful white horse in the fog, and curious about the nature of this strange world, ventures into it, becoming hopelessly lost in the process.
Hedgehog in the Fog [ Ëжик в Tумане ] is a classic Russian animated short film from 1975. Based on a story by Sergei Kozlov. Charming in its simplicity.

In 2003 "Hedgehog in the Fog" won the "#1 Animated film of all the time" at "All time animation best 150 in Japan and Worldwide" contest in Tokyo, Japan.

Awards: "Outstanding Film of the Year", London, UK, 1977 "Second Prize", Sydney, Australia, 1978 "Third Prize", Chicago, USA, 1977.

Sergei M. Eisenstein - Drawings (1961)

Рисунки. Dessins. Drawings.
by Sergei M. Eisenstein

Hardcover: 228 pages
Publisher: Publishing House "Iskustvo" (Art) (May 30, 1961)
Language: Russian, English, French
Product Dimensions: 62 x 94.8

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was a Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958).

Eisenstein's book presents his drawings and sketches for his films of different years as well as trilingual texts: essays by Y. Pimenov ("The Drawings of Eisenstein"), Olga Aisenstat ("Eisenstein the Graphic Artist"), Gennady Myasnikov ("Director's View of the Film") and Eisenstein himself ("How I Learned to Draw" and "A Few Words about My Drawings").

Yuliya Solntseva - Zacharovannaya Desna AKA The Enchanted Desna (1964)

Jonathan Rosenbaum's comments on first seeing the film:
May 26, 1972: A screening of Julia Solntseva’s THE ENCHANTED DESNA (1964) at the Cinémathèque. Here is another Russian masterpiece that, like ENTHUSIASM, rarely gets shown, is ignored in most film literature, and on first glance seems to outdistance nearly all the “official” Russian classics.First glances are often deceptive; but how can we verify them when the films remain so difficult to see, and are so seldom spoken about? Indeed, if it hadn’t been for Godard’s enthusiastic reference to DESNA in a 1965 interview, I might never have gone. But surely it is one of the most ravishing spectacles ever made, an ecstatic riot of color and sound that uses 70mm and stereophonic recording with all the freedom and imagination of an inspired home movie.

Aleksandr Medvedkin - Schastye aka Happiness [+Extras] (1932)

Aleksandr Medvedkin’s Happiness, as rowdy as any Soviet silent movie, is a comic parable composed of equal parts of Tex Avery and Luis Buñuel. It satirizes the plight of a Soviet farmer who finds himself providing for the state, the church, and his peers at the expense of his personal satisfaction. A hapless young prole, Khmyr, is tasked by his wife with the goal of going out in the world and finding happiness, lest he end up dead and dissatisfied after a lifetime of toil, like his father. Through stylistic exaggeration and a systematic attack on pre- and post-Revolutionary Russia’s dearest institutions, the movie achieves a wide-ranging, and deeply wounding, attack on the limitations placed on personal freedom in Russian society

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.