The Ascent
Two Soviet partisans leave their starving band to get supplies from a nearby farm. The Germans have reached the farm first, so the pair must go on a journey deep into occupied territory, a voyage that will also take them deep into their souls.
Casts & Crew
Boris Plotnikov
Vladimir Gostyukhin
Lyudmila Polyakova
Viktoriya Goldentul
Mariya Vinogradova
Nikolai Sektimenko
Anatoliy Solonitsyn
Sergei Kanishchev
Also Directed by Larisa Shepitko
The first graduation work from Larisa Shepitko.
The Homeland of Electricity, Larisa Shepitko's adaptation of an Andrei Platonov story, was one of three short films collected in an omnibus work (Beginning of an Unknown Era) commissioned to honor the 50th Anniversary of the October Revolution. Censors eventually shelved the film and it would not see the light of day until well after Shepitko's death, during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika.
Two young directors adapted the short stories of two Russian authors whose works had been banned for decades, and so their film ended up in the censor’s vault as well – for twenty years. Both tales look back to the post-revolutionary era: 'Angel' speaks tragically of the brutality and destruction of the time, and 'The Homeland of Electricity' captures its haunting grotesquery.
Various dwellers of the Russian forest: Leshiy (forest goblin), Vodyanoy (water spirit), Ovinni (barn spirit) Domovoy (house spirit), Anchutka (gremlin) and Rusalka (mermaid) meet at Baba Yaga's chicken-legged hut and receive an esteemed guest who appears from nowhere. They gather around one table to say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new, that is until the guest grows bored with their antics and seeks fun elsewhere.
Larisa Shepitko's diploma film. An idealistic high school graduate goes to work on a state farm on the Kazakh steppe, only to clash with its authoritarian leader.
Matyora is a small village on a beautiful island with the same name. The existence of the village is threatened with flooding by the construction of a dam. This is the story of the inhabitants of Matyora and their farewell to their homeland.
The second graduation work from Larisa Shepitko.
The war ended a long time ago, but for the heroine of the film, the former pilot, only those years were filled with genuine meaning. She deeply feels discord with reality, lack of contact with her daughter. She doesn't manage to adapt to this peaceful, everyday life, she doesn't lose her piercing desire to fly...
Two young talented neurosurgeons — Pyotr and Sasha — are enthusiastically working on a complex medical experiment. But in search of stability and a better life, Pyotr goes to work in Stockholm, Sasha becomes a major official. Pyotrr's overseas life does not add up, and he returns to Moscow. Realizing that his friend has a completely different life, Pyotr goes to Siberia, where he works on an ambulance. There he meets a girl with a brain disease, the study of which he had once been involved in, but did not finish the job. Feeling in vain of a lived, failed life, a sense of professional guilt in front of this sick girl, whom no one can help, torment him, and he again recalls his true destiny.