Anatoli Karpov

Matthieu Carriere, who once starred in German director Volkor Schlondorff's breakthrough film Young Torless, turns director himself for Fool's Mate. Michael Marwitz plays a once-famous concert pianist and chess whiz. He compromises his talents by casting his lot with a group of self-destructive druggies and gamblers. Marwitz' new circle of friends effectively ruins his marriage to Victoria Tennant, an English architect. Fool's Mate makes no effort to cheer up its audience, but this sort of fare apparently is what the European film-festival circuit thrives on.

Oleg, the host of a TV show is asked to cover in his show a new ultramodern amusement park called "Park of the Soviet Period". The life in the park is an exaggerated version of the soviet life - pioneers parading, girls selling soda water on the street, socialist banners are everywhere, communist party decisions, free medical procedures, etc. When Oleg falls in love with a nurse he discovers that the rules of the Park forbid any personal contact with the staff, that was trained to live a very different life compared to the life in the world outside. As he fights to gain the heart of the nurse he finds deep flaws in the Utopian atmosphere of the park and decides he must do something about it.

Garry Kasparov is possibly the greatest chess player who has ever lived. In 1997, he played a match against the greatest chess computer: IBM's Deep Blue. He lost. This film depicts the drama that happened away from the chess board from Kasparov's perspective. It explores the psychological aspects of the game and the paranoia surrounding IBM's ultimate chess machine.