Native Land

Lev Tolstoy and the Russia of Nicolai II is a 1928 Soviet silent documentary film directed by Esfir Shub. The film is considered lost. Lev Tolstoy and the Russia of Nicolai II is the final film in Esfir Shub's trilogy of films that began with The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927) and continued with The Great Road (1927).

A comedy starring Nina Shaternikova, The Skotinins is loosely based on the 18th century play The Minor by Denis Fonvizin. In it, the upper class is shown as both depraved and stupid, engaging a variety of absurd, over-the-top follies.

The dashing mountaineer Zaur kills a Russian "imperialist" thereby becoming an abrek, member of a roving band of outlaws.

A feature-length documentary based on film reports from the Spanish civil war.

A visual composition of the world.

Propaganda film presenting the Soviet side of the Iran crisis of 1946 and the short-lived Azerbaijan People's Government.

In this pioneering documentary, one of the earliest Soviet sound films, Shub shot a contemporary chronicle of the progress of establishing electricity across the Soviet nation, a struggle spearheaded by the Komsomol.

A compilation of newsreels shot between 1913 and 1917 - the years leading up to the Russian Revolution.

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.

A bold study on the dangers of prostitution in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. It's sort of dramatic fiction that tells the story of Lyuba, which after irremediable events, loses his honor, being obliged to exercise the oldest profession in the world to survive. She hopes for better days and a new opportunity. The film also shows us the story of two other women who also need hope.

The Great Road (1927) is a Soviet silent documentary directed by Esfir Shub. Serving as the second part of her trilogy on Russian history—between The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927) and Lev Tolstoy and the Russia of Nicolai II (1928)—the film chronicles the revolutionary path of the Soviet Union, assembling archival footage to depict the struggle, transformation, and aspirations of the early Soviet state.

A film record of the gifts and gift-givers to comrade Stalin on the occasion of his 70th birthday in 1948. The majority of the action takes place in the Halls of Gifts to Comrade Stalin in the Museum of the Revolution in Moscow.