Leonid Leonidov

His Excellency

This 1928 film features stylized cinematography and actors from the Moscow Art Theater in a fiction story based on the life of Jewish Labor Bund member Hirsch Lekert who attempted to assassinate the Vilna governor in 1902 to avenge the flogging of workers who participated in a May Day rally.

Wings of a Serf

This SovKino production was a major early experiment in Soviet historical film about the oprichnina period of Muscovite history, combining the costumed drama and Gothic thrills of the genre with historical materialist commentary on the dialectical collision of scientific progress and patriarchal religious tyranny under Tsar Ivan the Terrible. It follows a self-taught inventor from the serf class Nikishka, whose efforts to build a flying machine incite accusations of witchcraft. Nikishka and his beloved Fima are persecuted by the feudal lord Kurlyatev, who took their village in a petty land squabble. They’re rescued when Kurlyatev’s lands are taken by the Tsar in his autocratic campaign against the feudal system. Ivan puts Nikishka to work in his linen mill, where the young serf is coveted by Tsarina Maria Temryukovna, who the Tsar’s been ignoring in favor of his cupbearer Feodor. A series of harrowing intrigues wind a bloody dance through bedchamber, feast hall, cathedral and dungeon.

Courage to Live

Based on the documentary story "Earth Brothers" by B. Kostyukovsky about the tragic fate of Boris Gainulin, the foreman of the Komsomol brigade at the construction of the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station.

Colorful Stories

No Entry to the City

Directed by Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky.

The Secret of the Mountain Lake

A group of children gets into a dangerous adventure while trying to help the adults to supply water for the village. At any rate, they are courageous and won't give up.

Bread

"Bread" - a Bolshevik propaganda tale about the fundaments of living.

Marionettes

Fearing the Soviet Union, rich businessmen who want more influence in Europe decide to give the nation of Boufferia a new king, an easy to handle drunkard.