Leonid Parfyonov

The Term. Beginning of a Big Story

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.

Хлеб для Сталина. Истории раскулаченных

Children of the 20th Congress

In the film, the authors act as researchers of the Thaw era and the generation of the sixties.

Boris Godunov

Our eternal theme is crime and punishment. In Boris Godunov, the problems of conscience and existential choice are linked to the history of the country. Pushkin says that these things are woven into a mysterious knot or pattern. The choice of each of us is also the choice of our own history. An incorrect individual choice or a karmic mistake can lead to a chain of fatal events. If a person finds himself in power, it can become a problem for the whole people.

Generation P

Set in the ground zero of gangster globalism and driven by a truly manic energy, Generation P is at once a comedy, a tragedy and a fantasy about the rise of a poet-turned-adman through Russia’s nascent advertising business during the Moscow roaring 1990s.

Still Waters

Kashtanov, professor of medicine and famous Moscow surgeon, is experiencing midlife crisis. Suddenly he decides to leave everything and escape to the countryside in order to spend some time with old friends.

In Qvevri Veritas

Leonid Parfyonov travels to Georgia, where he studies how amphorae are made and grapes are crushed with bare feet, and learns why orange wine is slowly conquering the world.

Russian Georgians. Part 2

The second part of Leonid Parfyonov's project "Russian Georgians" will begin with a story about Stalin's design of the Russian patriotic upsurge in the Patriotic War, after which it will capture the post-war period - the Stalinist Russian style and the short-lived tandem of Beria and Malenkov. Then it will take us to the "thaw". The period of new heroes - a poet with a guitar Bulat Okudzhava and film directors Mikhail Kalatozov (Katalozishvili), Marlena Khutsiev (Khutsishvili) and Georgy Danelia. The journey will end with the stories of post-Soviet stars - Tsereteli, Tsiskaridze, Leps (Lepsveridze), Tutberidze and Akunin (Chkhartishvili).

The Term. Beginning of a Big Story

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.

Хлеб для Сталина. Истории раскулаченных

Children of the 20th Congress

In the film, the authors act as researchers of the Thaw era and the generation of the sixties.

Boris Godunov

Our eternal theme is crime and punishment. In Boris Godunov, the problems of conscience and existential choice are linked to the history of the country. Pushkin says that these things are woven into a mysterious knot or pattern. The choice of each of us is also the choice of our own history. An incorrect individual choice or a karmic mistake can lead to a chain of fatal events. If a person finds himself in power, it can become a problem for the whole people.

Generation P

Set in the ground zero of gangster globalism and driven by a truly manic energy, Generation P is at once a comedy, a tragedy and a fantasy about the rise of a poet-turned-adman through Russia’s nascent advertising business during the Moscow roaring 1990s.

Still Waters

Kashtanov, professor of medicine and famous Moscow surgeon, is experiencing midlife crisis. Suddenly he decides to leave everything and escape to the countryside in order to spend some time with old friends.

In Qvevri Veritas

Leonid Parfyonov travels to Georgia, where he studies how amphorae are made and grapes are crushed with bare feet, and learns why orange wine is slowly conquering the world.

Russian Georgians. Part 2

The second part of Leonid Parfyonov's project "Russian Georgians" will begin with a story about Stalin's design of the Russian patriotic upsurge in the Patriotic War, after which it will capture the post-war period - the Stalinist Russian style and the short-lived tandem of Beria and Malenkov. Then it will take us to the "thaw". The period of new heroes - a poet with a guitar Bulat Okudzhava and film directors Mikhail Kalatozov (Katalozishvili), Marlena Khutsiev (Khutsishvili) and Georgy Danelia. The journey will end with the stories of post-Soviet stars - Tsereteli, Tsiskaridze, Leps (Lepsveridze), Tutberidze and Akunin (Chkhartishvili).

Russian Georgians. Part 1

The film is about the historical role of Georgians in Russian, and later - Soviet politics, culture and science. The heroes of the film are Bagration and Shevardnadze, Pirosmani and Danelia, Balanchine and Andronikov.

Old Songs about the Main Thing 2

Eye of God

The «Eye of God» is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Pushkin Museum. It shows how progressive and pro-West Russians can be, when it comes to comprehending the essence of beauty. Ivan Tsvetayev, a village priest's son, the founder of the museum, wanted the new generation of "Ivans" to understand that we are Europe, while Antiquity is our mutual cradle.

Old Songs About the Main Thing

O World, You Are a Sport!

A film about Russian athletes at the Athens Olympics.

Gogol the Bird

This biographical picture that was made for the 200th anniversary of Nikolai Gogol,is filmed in the unique style of the author Leonid Parfyonov. Documentary shows that the author of "Dead Souls", "The Inspector General" and "Taras Bulba" is not the founder of realism in Russian literature, but a modern and actual avant-garde writer who created works hitherto unprecedented, full of magic and phantasmagoria.

Russian Jews. Part Three. After 1948.

With the assassination in 1948 of the head of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Solomon Mikhoels, by the state security, new times begin in the relationship between the Soviet government and the Jews.

Russian Jews. Part One. Before Revolution.

The history of Jewish people in Russia up until the 1917 revolution.

Russian Jews. Part Two. 1918-1948.

The second film of the trilogy covers the thirtieth anniversary from 1918 to 1948. Unprecedented until that time in any country of the world, a bright and massive Jewish participation in all spheres of state policy and culture.

Russia in Bloom

A documentary about Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky, a pioneer in color photography of early 20th-century Russia.

Listyev. A New Look

Investigation of the causes of death of Vladislav Listyev. 25 years passed, but the perpetrators of the highest-profile contract murder in Russia in the 1990s were not found. Or didn’t you want to? Or found, but silent? Rodion decided to conduct his investigation. He wants to know the name of the customer. Six months of work, dozens of interviews with colleagues, friends and relatives of Listyev, investigators who conducted the case. And everyone answers the main question: who killed Vlad Listyev?

He Came to Give Us Freedom

Biographical documentary about Mikhail Gorbachev and the way he did not waste his inner freedom before becoming General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and giving this freedom to the people.

Bashlachev. The Flight of Death

A documentary film about the life and early death of Russian singer and songwriter Aleksandr Bashlachev through the eyes of his friends, family members and other representatives of rock music scene.

Pocket of Russia

The film restores the panorama of the centuries. Journalistic narration with extensive use of artistic reconstructions, computer graphics, animation shows that the business tradition in the region was not interrupted. She manifests herself in different ways in different eras. A key trick used by different types of screen technologies is animation. Monuments to great people, buildings, industrial structures, landscapes of the Volga and Oka, film and photo chronicles are transformed, change in time and space, acquire a different dimension in order to somehow interact with the present, enter into a dialogue with descendants.

Zvorykin-Muromets

Parfenov's documentary is about a brilliant scientist and engineer, born in Russia, but only known on the other side of the ocean. The invention of modern television changed the history of mankind. The invention has an author, who is almost unknown in his homeland. Vladimir Zworykin, born in Murom, a Russian American, was the person who created distant wireless transmission of images.

The Age of Nabokov

Leonid Parfenov's program “Nabokov's Century” is dedicated to the centenary of the great Russian and American classic. These are, first of all, the stories of people who knew the writer closely: Elena Vladimirovna Nabokova-Sikorskaya - “the favorite sister of the favorite brother”, as Vladimir Vladimirovich called her, and Nabokov's son Dmitry Vladimirovich. Nabokov, who became a genius of two languages and two literatures, is an exceptional case. The film crew visited America, where Nabokov, an American professor of Russian literature, taught at Cornell University for a long time. The viewer will also see the St. Petersburg mansion and the house in Rozhdestvensko estate, where the happy childhood of the future writer took place, his apartment in the hotel in the Swiss town of Montreux, where Nabokov lived the last sixteen years of his life.

KVN Major League

KVN is a Russian humour TV show and competition where teams compete by giving funny answers to questions and showing prepared sketches. The programme was first aired by the First Soviet Channel on November 8, 1961. Eleven years later, in 1972, when few programmes were being broadcast live, Soviet censors found the students' impromptu jokes offensive and anti-Soviet and banned KVN. The show was revived fourteen years later during the Perestroika era in 1986, with Alexander Maslyakov as its host. It is one of the longest-running TV programmes on Russian Television. It also has its own holiday on November 8, the birthday of the game, which KVN players celebrate every year since it was announced and widely celebrated for the first time in 2001.

Fort Boyard Russia

Russian game show based on the original French format of Fort Boyard.

Evening Urgant

Evening show Ivan Urgant. Movies, sports, new gadgets, art. What is happening in the country and in the world? Actual characters discussing the day's events and new music.

Namedni

A series of documentary films chronicling life in ex-USSR and in the world year by year, by Leonid Parfyonov.

Old Songs about the Main Thing

Karamora

A young anarchist Karamora and his lover, Alina are caught–up in a confrontation with members of a powerful organization which costs Alina her life. Devastated, Karamora wants vengeance but this ancient secret order’s tentacles are everywhere, with depth and reach far beyond human capabilities. Karamora uncovers classified information that goes right to the heart of this arcane organization only to find out that real power lies elsewhere. Who are they, and will Karamora find peace once the truth is revealed?

Без души

Russian Empire

A documentary series which presents a modern look at the history of the Russian state from 1697 to 1917. Each episode covers the reign of one or several monarchs from Peter I to Nicholas II.

Намедни 1961—2003. Наша эра