The House on Trubnaya

Moscow in October

October reflects a general attempt in Russia to sustain the frenzy and dynamism of revolutionary fervour. This attempt increased in scale and ambition as they pushed it further, resulting in the theatricalisation of life. In other words, the boundaries between real events and fabricated drama became blurred as the portrayal of life became more exaggerated. It is important to remember that the film does not represent what actually happened during the 1917 Revolution, but is rather an adaptation.

Pages of Life

The story of a young woman who, after her years at university in the city, returns to her hometown an engineer and begins work on a huge new power plant. She continues to supervise work on the plant throughout the war.

Masters of Ukrainian Art in Concert

Soviet musical film-concert directed by Boris Barnet. Filmed in 1952 at the Kyiv Film Studio.

Annushka

The main character, Anna Denisova, is a simple Russian woman, on whose shoulders all the hardships of wartime fell. Like all her compatriots, Annushka did everything in her power to bring Victory Day closer. In this war, she lost her husband, Pyotr, but managed to save the lives of her three children — Sasha, Nina and Granata. The trials of Annushka didn't end with the end of the war. In the first years of peace, all survivors had to survive the famine and spend their last strength on rebuilding the country.

Storm Over Asia

In 1918 a young and simple Mongol herdsman and trapper is cheated out of a valuable fox fur by a European capitalist fur trader. Ostracized from the trading post, he escapes to the hills after brawling with the trader who cheated him. In 1920 he becomes a Soviet partisan, and helps the partisans fight for the Soviets against the occupying British army. However he is captured by the British when they try to requisition cattle from the herdsmen at the same time as the commandant meets with a reincarnated Grand Lama. After the trapper is shot, the army discovers an amulet that suggests he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. They find him still alive, so the army restores his health and plans to use him as the head of a puppet regime. The trapper is thus thrust into prominence as he is placed in charge of the puppet government. By the end, however, the "puppet" turns against his masters in an outburst of fury.

Lyana

A group of Moldavian folk musicians compete for the top Soviet prize. Singer Lyana loves the flautist, but he's fallen afoul of the group leader.

Chess Fever

With an international chess tournament in progress, a young man becomes completely obsessed with the game. His fiancée has no interest in it, and becomes frustrated and depressed by his neglect of her, but wherever she goes she finds that she cannot escape chess. On the brink of giving up, she meets the world champion, Capablanca himself, with interesting results.

The Girl with the Hat Box

A Moscow hat shop girl chances upon a penniless young man who has arrived from the countryside for university and takes pity on him.

The Peasants

A historical revolutionary film depicting the struggle of peasants and the Baku proletariat against landowners and Musavatists in 1919.

By the Bluest of Seas

Two men shipwrecked on an island in the Caspian Sea are saved by members of a collective farm, where they work on its fishing boats and woo the young woman leading the fishermen.

Outskirts

In a remote Russian village during World War I, colourful and nuanced characters experience divided loyalties: family loyalty vs. personal desire, nationalism vs. transcendent humanism.

The Three Million Trial

History of theft and double crossing when two thieves fall out over the theft of the money of the proceeds of the sale of a house by a banker to a religious community.

Poet

Soviet propaganda film about communists plotting a violent attack on a Russian city. A local poet helps the communists and they glorify his poem about Lenin.

Miss Mend

Three reporters and an office girl are trying to stop a bacteriological strike by some powerful western business leaders against the USSR.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks

An ignorant and prejudiced American’s visit of Soviet Russia goes off the rails after his luggage is stolen and he is separated from his bodyguard.

The Thaw

A story about capitalistic corruption in a small village and the personal struggles of Anka (Vera Marinich) as she is pregnant and abandoned by her lover.

Man with a Movie Camera

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

Battleship Potemkin

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre.