Alexandr Rastorguev
On July 30, 2018, documentary filmmaker Alexander Rastorguev was killed in the Central African Republic. He left a unique mark on Russian cinema, but managed to do much less than he could. "Rastorguev" - a portrait of one of the brightest and most free filmmakers of our time; direct speech and fragments of films, forming a single statement about the meaning of art, homeland and pain.
The main character of the film, Alexander Strizhenova, became famous in talk shows and tabloid media as the daughter of a Soviet actress, Natalya Strizhenova, who grew up without a father - but this is not mentioned in the film by Rastorguev. Sasha, beaten by life, when we meet her, lives in a cluttered and untidy village house somewhere in the Moscow Region with her husband, with whom they swear dirtyly in the presence of their young son Ilya. Sasha smokes, drinks and endlessly suffers from a lack of love and from the fact that no one can understand it. Three years later, the viewer again sees her life - in another place, with another man and with a new child, but in about the same circumstances.
Аlina Makarova is a mother of six of her own children and one adopted child. Her ex husband is from Ethiopia, and all her own children are mixed race. Only her adopted son is white, but he has serious health problems and is psychologically unstable. Alina's older children realise what complications the adoption might bring and are afraid that there won't be enough room, time and love for everyone. But she convinces them that it's the right thing.
Among those who took to the streets of Russian cities in recent months are people of various political views. This is the story of a young Russian nationalist.
Schoolboy Semyon Golubovsky, Vladivostok. Students Egor Chernyuk and Oleg Alexeev, Kaliningrad. Entrepreneur Viktor Barmin, Yekaterinburg. Activist Violetta Grudina, Murmansk. Minibus driver Vladimir Semenov, Astrakhan. What unites these people? All of them are activists of regional headquarters created for the campaign of Alexey Navalny, who announced his self-nomination for the post of President of the Russian Federation. And all of them are the heroes of the film "Electing Russia."
This movie is about children who live every day with a reminder of war and enemies. This happens in today's Russia, in the city of Belaya Kalitva in the Rostov region. Teens take Cossack education.
The Zharkov family-father, mother and two young sons-belong to the Dolgan community, one of the last indigenous peoples pursuing their traditional nomadic life in the extreme north of Siberia. The children used to be sent to boarding school, where they became estranged from their family and culture, but nowadays they can get homeschooling from teachers assigned to them by the Russian authorities. Seven-year-old Zakhar and his older brother Prokopy are the protagonists in this calm, observational film. Zakhar's first year of schooling is with Nelly, a young but serious teacher. She tells him about President Putin and the importance of mathematics, and he learns classical poems by heart.
Alexey Navalny began his election campaign in the regions of Russia with a trip to Murmansk. Thousands of citizens came to his rally, and in the rain. This is the success of local activists who organized the rally and selflessly campaigned. Alexander Rastorguyev and Dmitry Kuvaldin spent several days together with the coordinator of Navalny's Murmansk headquarters, Violetta Grudina , an LGBT activist who was attacked because of her sexual orientation.
Near Moscow at the end of April they took the Reichstag by storm. More precisely, a copy of it - during the reconstruction of the battle in the Patriot Park... Hundreds of people - in uniform, with weapons and equipment from the Second World War - ran through mud and puddles to the Reichstag model built near the forest...
A police sergeant of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” comes to Moscow to receive the Donbass Volunteer badge as a reward for participating in the hostilities in eastern Ukraine on the side of pro-Russian separatists.
Zakhar is 7 years old, and his brother Procopius is 9. Each of the brothers already has its own deer and its own tundra for wandering. Previously, children born into a nomad family at this age were almost forcibly taken away to study in a boarding school on the mainland. And they rarely returned to the parental home. Trying to preserve the traditions of the nomadic peoples in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the authorities decided to revive the practice of "nomadic schools" that disappeared in Russia in the 30s. That’s how the 23-year-old Nelli Andreevna falls into the Zharkov family in order to explain to Zakhar and Prokopy what a mathematician is needed in life and who Vladimir Putin is.
An intimate portrait of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov — once Deputy Prime Minister and “an heir of President Yeltsin”, later an uncompromising adversary of Putin — that was assassinated near the Kremlin in February 2015. Election campaigns and hotel beds, protest rallies and office routine, train compartments and courtrooms, night walks and police vans – you have never seen any politician so close. This is a story how a journalist assignment turns into a genuine friendship.
The documentary project The Term was conceived in May 2012. When the directing trio commenced mapping the Russian sociopolitical landscape, Vladimir Putin had just settled into the Kremlin for his third term. The original experimental format of “documentary bulletins,” which were published daily online, allowed for wide-ranging content; in the feature film version, however, the filmmakers focused solely on the members of various opposition groups. Nevertheless, the work’s neutral position remains and viewers have to interpret the objectively presented situations for themselves. The main characteristics of this strongly authentic movie include close contact with the protagonists, precise editing, and an effectively controlled release of information.
A youth comedy about the tragedy of the first love. An experiment in the area of the film language. REC, accidentally pressed in the middle of a fight. Jealosies, breakups, reunions. A few bedroom scenes, shot with a home camera. Cries and whispers of the urban outskirts. The audience of the film are both Bergman fans and YouTube viewers.
The film is about Alexey Popogrebsky's film "How I spent this summer". In the film, there are no tedious reflections of the actors and the director about their film against the background of posters of the same film. But there is life itself, real, unmasked, and, despite the sea of comicality, it makes you horrified at how the Russian film process can take place…
This 2012 program exploring the relationship between filmmakers Larisa Shepitko and Elem Klimov was broadcast on the Russian television channel Kultura and features interviews with Klimov’s brother, the writer German Klimov, and screenwriter Natalya Ryazantseva.
These are the stories of the three guys,three friends, living in a city in the south of Russia. In the course of a year they recorded their everyday lives with a small HDcam. This record is what comprises the movie and to what it is dedicated. Our heroes are eighteen years old and they live average lives: work, have parties and, fall in love. But finally they will have to make those most important of personal choices which will define their future.
A drunk couple spend their summer-holiday at sea. Their life is not everything they hoped for, and abuse is part of their relationship. At sea they dream about love and understanding, and we observe their fellow countrymen spending their holidays on the same beach. Tragedy, comedy, love, hate, sex : it is all there.
Not far from Grozny, on an alternate railroad track, there is an old steam locomotive with several wagons attached to it. The steam engine gives steam — hot water is in the boilers, and a bathhouse is equipped in the cars, where soldiers and officers wash, laundry is washed ... A washing on wheels — at the same time a soldier’s bivouac, a piece of peaceful life, and the beginning of a new road. To this locomotive, these cars come - platooned, in batches and one at a time - tired, tired, unshaven, angry Russian guys. They scrape dirt off themselves. Soak from stubborn soot, warm with souls. They put on clean underwear. They drink vodka. They smoke. They talk about love, remember loved ones and native places. Cry. They sing. And around - the landscape after the battle. It's not over yet ... An accidental explosion. Stray bullet. And our guys washed into the unknown. Clean. Hoping to survive.
