Mikhail Kalatozov
Contemporary film critics regard the epic film I Am Cuba as a modern masterpiece. The 1964 Cuban/Soviet coproduction marked a watershed moment of cultural collaboration between two nations. Yet the film never found a mass audience, languishing for decades until its reintroduction as a "classic" in the 1990s. Vicente Ferraz explores the strange history of this cinematic tour de force, and the deeper meaning for those who participated in its creation.
Torn by personal guilt Italian General Umberto Nobile reminisces about his 1928 failed Arctic expedition aboard the airship Italia.
An unabashed exercise in cinema stylistics, I Am Cuba is pro-Castro/anti-Batista rhetoric dressed up in the finest clothes. The film's four dramatic stories take place in the final days of the Batista regime; the first two illustrate the ills that led to the revolution, the third and fourth the call to arms which cut across social and economic lines.
Four geologists are searching for diamonds in the wilderness of Siberia. After a long and tiresome journey they manage to find their luck and put the diamond mine on the map. The map must be delivered back to Moscow. But on the day of their departure a terrible forest fire wreaks havoc, and the geologists get trapped in the woods.
Veronika and Boris come together in Moscow shortly before World War II. Walking along the river, they watch cranes fly overhead, and promise to rendezvous before Boris leaves to fight. Boris misses the meeting and is off to the front lines, while Veronika waits patiently, sending letters faithfully. After her house is bombed, Veronika moves in with Boris' family, into the company of a cousin with his own intentions.
In one of the steppe regions of Kazakhstan arrives on Komsomol youth squad. Severe frosts, spring mud flows, exhausting work than their specialty - the development of virgin land does not come easy. But the young are young - they work, enjoy life, fall in love. In the center of the story - the touching romance secretary of the Komsomol organization and tractor driver Anne.
About the first years of the formation of Soviet power, about the life and work of Feliks Dzerzhinsky in 1918-1925. The film covers the most important episodes of his biography. In July 1918, as a result of a revolt of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, the German ambassador Mirbach was killed. Feliks Dzerzhinsky alone goes to the headquarters of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and Anarchists, he manages to persuade ordinary soldiers and sailors, participants in the rebellion, who are now cracking down on their leaders. In 1921, Dzerzhinsky was aimed at combating homelessness, as a result of which, by 1925, former homeless children, having completed their studies, were sent to the construction of Yugostal, the largest industrial plant in Ukraine.
Story about 3 childhood friends who found each other later in life and decided to rafting on one of the Moscovian rivers.
During the late 1940s Ц early 1950s when not many movies were shot in the country, Kalatozov was granted the State Award (1951) for his film Zagovor obrechyonnikh (Conspiracy of the Doomed, 1950), a political pamphlet after the same-name play by N. Virta, starring the uncomparable Russian singer Aleksandr Vertinsky Фильм отражает период "холодной" войны начала 50-х годов. В одной из стран Восточной Европы строительство нового государственного строя встречает активное сопротивление. Зреет антидемократический заговор: по наущению посла организуется покушение на заместителя премьер-министра республики, коммунистку Ганну Лихта. На помощь коммунистам приходит Советский Союз - и вооруженные отряды рабочик арестовывают заговорщиков.
The autumn of 1941. Leningrad is besieged by the Nazis. A new model of tank is being developed at a large defense plant. Built in the shortest possible time combat vehicles are tested directly on battlefields, fighting with fascists in the outskirts of the city. The first feature film about the heroic everyday life of city defenders was shot directly in assembly shops of plants and in the streets of Leningrad when the city was fighting against the enemy
The film is based on the biography of Valeri Chkalov (1904 - 1938), a Russian pilot, who set several long distance flight records. Chkalov and his co-pilots Baidukov and Belyakov together had accomplished several non-stop long-distance flights. In June of 1937 Chkalov set the world record, covering 12000 kilometers in 63 hours of non-stop flight from Moscow to Vancouver, Washington, flying over the North Pole.
The airborne trickster - Aleksei Tomylin, civil aviation pilot - one day decides to stop tempting fate and only flies directly. The airport where Tomylin works is near the border with Afghanistan. One day he receives the task to fly across the border and transfer a package with an order to catch a notorious saboteur. On his way back, Tomylin crash lands near an abandoned settlement - and soon finds himself taken hostage by a gang. The hero pretends to agree to take the saboteur abroad, and relies only on his expertise as a flying ace.....
Banned in the Soviet Union for its "negative" content and never released, Kalatozov was forced to retreat from filmmaking for seven years because of this film. The film sets out to illustrate the old adage, "For want of a nail, the battle was lost," showing how the inferior quality of something so trivial as a nail in a soldier's boot leads inexorbly to the capture of an armored train. Kalatozov had intended to demonstrate the crucial and universal importance of efficiency in Soviet industry, but the generals decided that his fable gave a negative impression of the Red Army's capabilities.
An ethnographic treasure that documents with visual bravado the harsh conditions of life in the isolated mountain village of Ushkul.
The documentary Their Kingdom, co-directed in 1928 by Nutsa Gogoberidze and Mikhail Kalatozishvili (Kalatozov) for Soviet Georgia’s Cinema Trust, was considered lost until 2008, when there appeared a possibility that this important film – Georgia’s first documentary feature and Kalatozov’s directorial debut – had not disappeared irretrievably.
Schoolteacher Spiridon and his pretty wife Despine are taking a room in a small inn. Tariel Mklavadze, a local nobleman and debauchee falls for a beauty of Despine. He and his friends terrify young couple trying to get Despine.
A variety of Russian stars are presented in a revue that includes many traditional songs and dances
