A sequence of four (in the television version – five) independent stories with their independent characters, forming a coherent narrative. In its form the film is like a theatre performance with a final bow taken by all the participants. Long-forgotten “un-splintered” monologues allow the actors to put on show their acting skills, without hiding them behind special effects and dynamical montage. Unlike anything, this is original dramatic art. The film tries to drive the spectator into frenzy. It is a protest that is vital in an era of total crisis, a cry from the heart which paradoxically gives us hope that this is not yet the end, but only a crack in the system, a liberation from stereotypes, templates and chains.
– Closing film of the Russian Film Festival "Kinotavr", Sochi, 2009.
Cast: Mikhail Efremov, Alexander Strizhenov, Victor Sukhorukov, Evgeni Stychkin,
Pavel Derevianko, Yuri Kolokolnikov,
Directed by Grigori Konstantinopolsky
Script: Grigori Konstantinopolsky
Producer: Grigori Konstantinopolsky, Andrei Novikov
The opening film of VII Russian Film Festival.
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In 1565, Ivan the Terrible, Tsar of Russia suffers a defeat in the long war against Poland. Around him, he can see only treachery. To struggle against the traitors, he creates a personal guard, the “Tsar’s Dogs”, whose sign of recognition is a dog’s head attached to their saddles. The Tsar’s Dogs plunge Russia into a blood bath. In alarm, the Metropolitan, the Head of the Russian Church, takes refuge in a monastery. Ivan the Terrible, believing that he can understand and interpret the signs, sees the Last Judgment approaching. So he sends for Metropolitan Philip, his childhood friend, the Superior of the monastery on the Solovki Islands. The latter, attempting to save the innocent from the Tsar’s cruelty, fights increasingly against the Tsar’s power. There is thus a clash between two violently and diametrically opposite visions of the world, smashing morality and justice, God and men.
Cannes Film Festival, 2009 – Official Selection – Un Certain Regard;
Moscow IFF, 2009 – “Opening Film”
Cast: Pyotr Mamonov, Oleg Yankovsky, Yury Kuznetsov, Ramilya Iskander, Aleksandr Domogarov, Ivan Okhlobystin, Alexei Frandetti, Alexei Makarov, Nastia Dontsova, Ville Haapasalo
Directed by Pavel Lungin
Script: Alexei Ivanov, Pavel Lungin
Producer: Pavel Lungin
Angelina lives in the Far East in a big city on the coast of the warm sea. Working with difficult children, Gelia wants to break with her loneliness: she simply needs to find happiness and, at last, start her own family. But have you ever seen that life is all that simple?
– The “Certain Regard” programme in Cannes in 2009;
– Award for Best Actor (Boris Kamorzin) – ORFF “Kinotavr”, Sochi, 2009.
Cast: Alisa Khazanova, Boris Kamorzin, Yuri Safarov, Dmitri Podnozov
Directed by Nikolai Khomeriki
Script: Alexander Rodionov, Nikolai Khomeriki
Producer: Roman Borisevich, Alexander Kushaev
The screenplay is an adaptation of Chekhov’s mysterious paradoxical and disturbing story, which can be in all justice called the most pessimistic and also the most life-asserting work of the author. The story is based on a real life incident and centers around the head doctor of an asylum who winds up as the asylum patient. Lonely, estranged, reflecting doctor Andrei Ragin is one of the focal characters in the work of Chekhov and the entire world literature of the 20th century. Preserving the story-line the authors deliberately move the scene into the present. Shooting of the film was done in a real asylum.
– Award for Best Actor (Vladimir Ilyin) – Moscow IFF, 2009.
Cast: Vladimir Ilyin, Alexei Vertkov, Alexander Pankratov-Chiorny, Evgeny Stychkin, Victor Soloviov, Alexei Zarkov, Albina Evtushevskaya, Anna Siniakina
Directed by Karen Shakhnazarov, with participation Alexander Gornovsky
Script: Alexander Borodiansky, Karen Shakhnazarov
Producer: Karen Shakhnazarov
In a village at edge of a large city a girl was born. This settlement was called Settlement. The mother did not know who gave her this present. And it was very difficult to figure out, since there had been so many accidents in her life. Now there are two of them, mother and daughter. They have no names. They run. Constantly, without stopping. The mother runs from the daughter in search of her self, of life, of the world. The girl runs after the mother because she can’t imagine either herself or the world without her. Their run is an infinite line of repeated mistakes, like the melody of a street organ, like the spinning of a top: the ridiculous toy which the mother once gave the little girl. But one day the spinning stops…
– Main prize (Grand-Prix), Prize for the best actress (Yana Troyanova), Grigory Gorin's Prize for the best screenplay (Vasily Sigarev), Prize of the Russian Film Critics' Guild "White Elephant" – Russian Film Festival "Kinotavr", Sochi-2009;
– Special mention (Don Quixote Award) of the International Federation of Cine Clubs – IFF in Karlovy Vary
Cast: Yana Troyanova, Polina Pluchek
Directed by Vasili Sigarev
Script: Vasili Sigarev
Producer: Roman Borisevich, Ruben Dishdishian
Andrey is a Moscow yuppie working as a creative manager in a large advertising agency. That day he smokes out an entire pack of cigarettes. With each cigarette the storm of events and conflicts Andrey is involved in becomes more and more violent. Confronted to a situation in which his professional and personal future is jeopardized, Andrey must make the one and only right decision.
Script writer Dmitry Sobolev: "Taking sides, making your choice in the world where everyone strives to achieve success. It is absolutely true about Moscow. In other areas of Russia changes haven't been so drastic. The way of life has remained the same. In Moscow success makes you. As a matter of fact I attempted to reveal that success was not all in life. The most important is the decisive choice. God has endowed us with the ability to choose and has given us the opportunity to make the choice. Success is not of vital importance, there is something else that counts. No use shrinking from taking sides. No one knows with whom the correct choice lies. The movie has no ready answer; it poses the question and leaves it unanswered. No answer is available; it can't be supplied either by philosophy or by any kind of art".
Nowadays version of Vladimir Menshow movie. Drama about predomination in school. In last quarter new student joins to senior class. He derange practice in force and defy leader who are ready for everything even use brutality just to keep his own status till school ends. Leader with his loyalists resolve to reckon in cruel way with anyone who think that can stand against him and try to disarrange order...
Cast: Noize MC, Dmitri Guzhev, Sergey Iushkevich, Irina Kupchenko, Yury Kuznecov, Ievdoky Germanov, Klaudia Korshunov
Directed by Andrey Kudinenko
Scriptwriter: Andrey Zhitkov, Alekxander Kachan
Producer: Pavel Lungin, Olga Vasilieva
Nothing is hapenning correctly, especially if you are fourteen years old. Movie heroes teenagers must handle not only their own inside emotional experience, inferiority complexes and youth maximalism, but also fight with cold outness. Three absolutely ordinary girls Katia, Vika and Geanna are leraning in ninth class. They are normal girls from normal Moscow district. In Monday girls find out that in Saturday in scholl will be discotheque. All week long Katia, Vika and Geanna are preparing for that and feel nervous. It’s must be most important moment in their lifes. But Katia was rude to teacher so there is posibility that party can be canceled...
Cast: Polina Filonenko, Agnia Kuznecova, Olga Shuvalova, Donatas Grudovich, Iulia Alexandrova, Harold Strelkov, Inga Oboldina, Aleksey Bagdasarov, Olga Lapshina
Directed by Valery Gay Germanica
Scriptwriter: Alexander Rodionov, Yury Kladiev
Producer: Igor Tolstunov
Tough and gritty war movie about young Russians who have to go to Afganistan to fight for their homeland in a war many of them don't wholly understand. In this hell on earth, the illusions shatter quickly and what is left is the wish to get out of this place alive....
Events of the film take place in both hemispheres. Presidents of countries, bosses of drug cartels, special agents and powerful secret service agencies from all around the world are the first hand participants of its events. The film begins with an account of a shocking yet quite ordinary skirmish - an average drug kin pin is beating one of his assistants with a golf club with a purpose of educating him, because the assistant's cell phone was quite unlawfully confiscated by an overly diligent secret service agent.
The mutilated gangster understands the incommensurability of his guilt and the level of his fault, and becomes the first character who asks the question: What do we know about the world we live in? However, he won't have the chance to contemplate on the answer. The agent, who took his property not thinking that a cell phone could be as dangerous as an atomic bomb, will seek an answer to this question. The speed of the following events is equivalent to its entertaining content. Secret codes, solutions, pursuits, new victims... There's no joke to this mystery: its unveiling will destroy all preexisting notions of international politics in the minds of the people.
Starring: Alexey Kravchenko, Alexey A. Petrukhin, Alexander Karpov, Igor Kashintsev, Vasily Livanov, Alexander Yakovlev, Arnis Litsitis, Michael Gorevoy, Victoria Tolstoganova, Anna Churina, Anna Chipovskaya, Peter Fedorov, Igor Zhizhikin, Oleg Taktarov
Russian language with latvian subtitles.
Finland, 1944. Captain Marinin is seemingly a fortune's favorite - he won the brightest victories in soviet marine history, a young woman falls in love with him from the first glance. However he is unacceptable for security services in his own country and becomes a target for them as well as for enemies.
The movie "First After God" as life itself brings lots of things - pain and hope, heroism and evil, friendship and betrayal, choice between fear and heroic deed, duty and love. Nothing is unambiguous - there can stand betrayal behind heroism, behind duty - cruelty, behind love - pure reckoning.
Film is produced by Mihail Kalatosischvili, grandson of famous director Mihail Kalatozov (Letyat Zhuravli, Soy Cuba).
Starring: Dmitri Orlov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Nina Ruslanova, Michael Gomiashvili, Irina Björklund, Yuri Stepanov, Viktor Sukhorukov, Liza Boyarskaya, Sergei Gorobchenko
Russian language with latvian subtitles.
1943. Colonel Vyshnevetsky is assigned by the government to prepare the mountain-alpine group of condemned fighters to block the activities
of elite Nazi "Edelweiss" units. The group will consist of 14-15 years old delinquent, desperate kids. They must all be orphans so that nobody will look after them. These boys are selected from orphanages, prisons and colonies and are being sent to the special training camp in the mountains with a further mission to destroy the Nazi military base or to die as they are all "bearers of top secret information" and should not be left alive.
Producer: Alexander Atanesyan
Script: Vladimir Kunin, Alexander Atanesyan
Actors: Andrey Panin, Andrey Krasko, Alexander Golovin, Sergey Richenkov, Vladimir Kashpur
Directed by Alexander Atanesian