Oleg Yankovskiy

Mirror

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

Nostalgia

Russian poet Andrei Gorchakov journeys through Italy with his interpreter Eugenia to research the life of an 18th-century Russian composer who once lived abroad. Isolated and consumed by an unrelenting longing for his homeland, Andrei becomes drawn to Domenico, a radical mystic obsessed with spiritual redemption. Through austere imagery and extended temporal rhythms, Tarkovsky examines exile, memory, and the profound melancholy of being unable to belong fully to either place or language.

The Musicians from Bremen

The classic story about a musicians from Bremen is told in not so classical way.

My Twentieth Century

A tale of twin girls, Dóra and Lili, who are born in 1880 Budapest at the same moment Thomas Edison presents his electric lightbulb to the world. The sisters are soon orphaned and separated in childhood, and follow different paths: one grows up to be a naïvely idealistic, bomb-toting anarchist, the other a pampered, hedonistic courtesan. Their paths cross once again on the Orient Express on New Year's Eve 1899...

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Hound of the Baskervilles - Part 1

The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 1981 Soviet film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was the third installment in the TV series about adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. A potent streak of humour ran through the film as concerns references to traditional British customs and stereotypes, ensuring the film's popularity with several generations of Russophone viewers. Other features of this best entry in the series include excellent exterior shots which closely match the novel's setting in the Dartmoor marshland, as well as an all-star cast: in addition to the famous Livanov -Solomin duo as Holmes and Watson, the film stars the internationally acclaimed actor/director Nikita Mikhalkov as Sir Henry Baskerville and the Russian movie legend Oleg Yankovsky as the villain Stapleton.

Tsar

In 16th-century Russia in the grip of chaos, Ivan the Terrible strongly believes he is vested with a holy mission. Believing he can understand and interpret the signs, he sees the Last Judgment approaching. He establishes absolute power, cruelly destroying anyone who gets in his way. During this reign of terror, Philip, the superior of the monastery on the Solovetsky Islands, a great scholar and Ivan's close friend, dares to oppose the sovereign's mystical tyranny. What follows is a clash between two completely opposite visions of the world, smashing morality and justice, God and men. A grand-scale film with excellent leading roles by Mamonov and Yankovsky. An allegory of Stalinist Russia

Afghan Breakdown

During the main withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, a company of hardened paratroopers under the command of Major Bandura are joined by Steklov, the son of a high-ranking officer.

The Shield and the Sword

The year is 1940 and Nazi Germany is at the height of its military prowess, having captured most of Europe and eyeing the Soviet Union to the East. The Russian military command suspects hostile intent from Germany and so arranges for its spies to infiltrate ranks of the German military and the SS. Alexander Belov is a Russian spy, who travels from Soviet-held Latvia to Nazi Germany under an alias of Johann Weiss. His mastery of the German language, steel nerves and an ability to manipulate others help him to use his connections in the SS to ascend the ladder of the German intelligence. He uses his position to identify sympathetic Germans, who help him to procure vital intelligence, and to help local resistance movements in their collective fight against Nazism.

Mirror

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

Nostalgia

Russian poet Andrei Gorchakov journeys through Italy with his interpreter Eugenia to research the life of an 18th-century Russian composer who once lived abroad. Isolated and consumed by an unrelenting longing for his homeland, Andrei becomes drawn to Domenico, a radical mystic obsessed with spiritual redemption. Through austere imagery and extended temporal rhythms, Tarkovsky examines exile, memory, and the profound melancholy of being unable to belong fully to either place or language.

The Musicians from Bremen

The classic story about a musicians from Bremen is told in not so classical way.

My Twentieth Century

A tale of twin girls, Dóra and Lili, who are born in 1880 Budapest at the same moment Thomas Edison presents his electric lightbulb to the world. The sisters are soon orphaned and separated in childhood, and follow different paths: one grows up to be a naïvely idealistic, bomb-toting anarchist, the other a pampered, hedonistic courtesan. Their paths cross once again on the Orient Express on New Year's Eve 1899...

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Hound of the Baskervilles - Part 1

The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 1981 Soviet film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was the third installment in the TV series about adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. A potent streak of humour ran through the film as concerns references to traditional British customs and stereotypes, ensuring the film's popularity with several generations of Russophone viewers. Other features of this best entry in the series include excellent exterior shots which closely match the novel's setting in the Dartmoor marshland, as well as an all-star cast: in addition to the famous Livanov -Solomin duo as Holmes and Watson, the film stars the internationally acclaimed actor/director Nikita Mikhalkov as Sir Henry Baskerville and the Russian movie legend Oleg Yankovsky as the villain Stapleton.

Tsar

In 16th-century Russia in the grip of chaos, Ivan the Terrible strongly believes he is vested with a holy mission. Believing he can understand and interpret the signs, he sees the Last Judgment approaching. He establishes absolute power, cruelly destroying anyone who gets in his way. During this reign of terror, Philip, the superior of the monastery on the Solovetsky Islands, a great scholar and Ivan's close friend, dares to oppose the sovereign's mystical tyranny. What follows is a clash between two completely opposite visions of the world, smashing morality and justice, God and men. A grand-scale film with excellent leading roles by Mamonov and Yankovsky. An allegory of Stalinist Russia

Afghan Breakdown

During the main withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, a company of hardened paratroopers under the command of Major Bandura are joined by Steklov, the son of a high-ranking officer.

The Shield and the Sword

The year is 1940 and Nazi Germany is at the height of its military prowess, having captured most of Europe and eyeing the Soviet Union to the East. The Russian military command suspects hostile intent from Germany and so arranges for its spies to infiltrate ranks of the German military and the SS. Alexander Belov is a Russian spy, who travels from Soviet-held Latvia to Nazi Germany under an alias of Johann Weiss. His mastery of the German language, steel nerves and an ability to manipulate others help him to use his connections in the SS to ascend the ladder of the German intelligence. He uses his position to identify sympathetic Germans, who help him to procure vital intelligence, and to help local resistance movements in their collective fight against Nazism.

Doctor Zhivago

Russian TV miniseries of Boris Pasternak's classic novel.

Assassin of the Tsar

A new doctor from Moscow arrives at a provincial mental institution. His interest is the peculiarities of the psyche of a patient who believes that he is Yakov Yurovsky, the man who assassinated the last Russian tsar. In the course of their conversations it transpires that the patient is a kind of philosopher, not without a gift for suggestion. In a while the doctor himself falls under his patient’s influence: he tends to relive that fatal night of June 16-17, 1918 when, without any investigation or trial, Tsar Nicholas II, who had recently abdicated, was murdered, together with his wife, daughters and incurably ill heir. Soon the doctor realizes that the tragedy of the last Russian tsar is in part his own tragedy, too...

The Man Who Cried

A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.

The Captivating Star of Happiness

In December 1825, distinguished members of the Russian military, most of whom were quite affluent and of noble lineage, took it upon themselves to stir revolution against the autocratic and tyrannical Czar Nikolai I in the wake of his not honoring the drafting of a constitution for the Russian people. The revolution failed miserably and the conspirators (known as the Decembrists) were weeded out by the czar himself. One by one, each of the conspirators confess and are systematically exiled to the harsh winters of Siberia, slated to work and wither in a prison/mine. The wives of the conspirators are faced with the prospect of leaving the bosom of wealth and family (including their own children) to be with their husbands in the brutal Siberian locale. If they agree to this, they face having their illustrious social stations stripped away and certain disdain from everyone around them...

Birds of Paradise

The events of the film take place in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. It is forbidden to listen to foreign radio stations, it is not safe to voice one’s opinions in front of strangers. Words of truth are spoken only in private kitchens behind the curtained windows. The KGB tap phones, survey the ‘unreliable’ and consistently step by step destroy all forms of decent. The protagonists challenge the inhumane state machine, putting on stake their very lives and proving that nothing and nobody can stop a person who is on his way to achieve a true freedom.

The Seagull

Based on A. Chekhov's comedy.

Evenings on a farm near Dikanka

A fantasy film on the theme of the early works of Nikolai Gogol, tightly interwoven with his personality and biography.

Flights in Dreams and in Reality

On the eve of his fortieth anniversary Sergei Makarov looks back at his life and learns that he has achieved nothing. He was not able to be happy and to bring happiness to the closest people in his life, neither to his long-suffering wife nor young mistress nor friends nor work... It is about the men who never grew up and could not find themselves in the time of stagnation – gifted, charming, but infantile and lost, they never were able to realize themselves...

Peer Gynt

Peer Gynt grew up a handsome guy, girls peered at him, and he dreamed of becoming a king and getting rich. He went to the wedding and there he saw the girl Solveig. Peer got drunk, quarreled with the guests and went into the mountains, where he met a troll maiden. Peer wanted to marry her and become a king, but the troll king explained that for this you need to become a troll and live according to their customs. Peer managed to escape, and he sailed on the ship. For many years he swam and accumulated wealth. And when he returned to his native coast in a storm, the ship sank with all the load.

Lad from Our Town

The young officer Sergei Lukonin faced severe trials: the war in Spain, an injury, escape from captivity, and the battles at Khalkhin Gol. Yet, he overcomes all hardships, showing courage and conviction in the justice of the cause he is fighting for.

Mute Witness

When a mute makeup/special effects artist working on a low-budget slasher film gets locked in a dilapidated Moscow movie studio late one night, she thinks she witnesses the making of a snuff film. Thus begins a night of terror.

Love by Request

Two people: Igor, an ex-athlete living aimlessly and chasing rubles to get drunk and Vera, a dowdy librarian, try to find their luck by planning to fall in love with each other based on "psychological conditioning".

Speech for the Defence

Valya supported her lover, denied herself everything, devotedly and sincerely loved him. He answered her with black ingratitude. Struck in the very heart, Valya decides to commit suicide with him.

Two Hussars

Drama on the novel of the same name L. N. Tolstoy. Two hussars - father and son - two morals, two worldviews. And although older Turbin frivolous in love, but reliable in friendship and principled in matters of honor. Junior Turbines do not stand up to comparison with his father - he is calculating, shallow and selfish "hussars of the new generation".

Paradise Apple

Me, Francysk Skaryna

A film about the Belarusian publisher and educator Francis (Georgy) Skaryna, who lived in the first half of the 16th century, the founder of the first Belarusian printing house in Vilnius and the author of fundamental research in the field of linguistics.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is a series of five films produced by Lenfilm for the Soviet Central Television, split into eleven episodes, starring Vasily Livanov as Sherlock Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Dr. Watson. They were directed by Igor Maslennikov and filmed in Russia (the then Soviet Union) between 1979 and 1986, and the series was one of the most successful in the history of Russian television.

Обыкновенное чудо

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Hound of the Baskervilles

The third part of the Soviet TV series based on the works of Arthur Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes. The events of the film take place in 1889. The country doctor Mortimer comes to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who visited the detective's apartment the day before in his absence and forgot his cane there. Mortimer tells the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, a hellish hound that has been haunting the Baskerville family from Devonshire for several centuries, and reports the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, the owner of the Baskerville Hall estate. The newspapers write that Charles Baskerville's death was caused by a heart attack, allegedly he was very unwell, but Mortimer does not believe a single word of them, since he found tracks of a huge dog not far from the body of the deceased.

Open Book

Memories of Sherlock Holmes

Detective television series based on the works of Arthur Conan Doyle. Five films about Sherlock Holmes, shot by Igor Maslennikov earlier, were remounted in 2000, a connecting story about Conan Doyle's literary secretary, Mr. Wood, who is preparing an anniversary collection of stories about Holmes for the beginning of the coming XX century. Sir Arthur receives huge mail every day, addressed not to him, but to Sherlock Holmes. And then one day a letter arrives with a plea for help, and Doyle begins an investigation...

Зона

Police Sergeant

A young police officer, Sergeant Nikolai Zakharov, who is simultaneously completing his studies at the University's Law Faculty, is assigned to investigate the assault and robbery committed against Alexei Severtsev, an applicant who has come from a distant city to study at a Leningrad university.

Tonight

Anna Karenina

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.