Slavic-related Films by Genre
Animated Films / Мультфильмы
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Animated Soviet Propaganda: from the October Revolution to Perestroika
A collection of animated propaganda films by Soviet-era directors and artists. Disc 1: American imperialists, Disc 2: Fascist barbarians, Disc 3: Capitalist sharks, Disc 4: Onward to the shining future: animation and the Big Soviet Lie.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1993.5.S65 A55 2006 DVD
Cheburashka, Adventures of Cheburashka & friends / Чебурашка
Based on books written by Eduard Uspenskii, this animated series follows the adventures of the loveable, big-eared creature named Cheburashka and his friends. Includes: Crocodile Gena, Cheburashka, Old Lady Shapocliak, Cheburashka is going to school, and Mitten.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .C443 2005 DVD
Masters of Russian Animation
A collection of animated short films by Soviet-era directors and artists.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.5 .M27 2000 DVD, v.1-4
Nu, pogodi! / Ну, погоди!
Eighteen episodes of the Russian animated children’s series "Nu, pogodi!" ("I’ll get you!"), in which a wolf is foiled in his many attempts to catch a rabbit.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .N8 2005
Vinni-Pukh (Винни-Пух)
The Russian version of Winnie the Pooh
Free access via Russian Film Hub
Comedy Films / Комедия
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Absurdistan / Абсурдистан
Length: 90 min.
Welcome to Absurdistan, a small village in the high desert mountains, just on the outskirts of reality, where magical visions and bizarre events fuse together. The village is facing a water shortage, but the men are too lazy to fix a rickety pipeline and the women are getting fed up with their good-for-nothing husbands. The women make a simple vow: ’No water, no sex.’
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2.A27 B735 2009Publication Date: 2008
Business Romance / Служебный роман (Sluzhebnyii roman)
Length: 151 min.
A romantic comedy about a female office manager and a male clerk.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S58 2012 DVDPublication Date: 1977- Cheburashka, Adventures of Cheburashka & friends / Чебурашка
Based on books written by Eduard Uspenskii, this animated series follows the adventures of the loveable, big-eared creature named Cheburashka and his friends. Includes: Crocodile Gena, Cheburashka, Old Lady Shapocliak, Cheburashka is going to school, and Mitten.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .C443 2005 DVD
The Diamond Arm / Бриллиантовая рука (Brilliantovaia ruka)
Length: 100 min.
An eccentric comedy about a modest Russian worker who starts a heroic combat against the gang of smugglers.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .B754 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1968
Irony of Fate, or, Enjoy your Bath! / Ирония суд’бы, или С легким паром! (Ironiia sud’by, ili S legkim parom!)
Length: 186 min.
Adventures of a young Moscow doctor on New Year’s Eve.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .I76 2008 DVDPublication Date: 1975
Ivan Vassilyevich Changes Occupation / Иван Васил’евич меняет профессию (Ivan Vasil’evich meniaet professiiu)
Length: 90 min.
One day young engineer Timofeev discovers that the device invented by him works as a time machine.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.85 .I84 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1973
Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears / Москва слезам не верит (Moskva slezam ne verit)
Length: 150 min.
A romantic comedy about three young, working-class, country girls, who go to Moscow in 1958 to seek work, men, and success. The story then jumps forward twenty years to look at the results of their expedition.
Call Number: Media Collection PG3476.B78 M32 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2006- Nu, pogodi! / Ну, погоди!
Eighteen episodes of the Russian animated children’s series "Nu, pogodi!" ("I’ll get you!"), in which a wolf is foiled in his many attempts to catch a rabbit.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .N8 2005
Operation "Y" and Other Shurik’s Adventures / Операция "Ы" и другие приключения Шурика (Operatsiia Y i drugie prikliucheniia Shurik)a
Length: 92 min.
This Russian sketch-based farcical comedy follows the character of Shurik as he stumbles into a variety of situations, including saving a warehouse from being robbed, and trying to help a bully understand the error of his ways.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.C55 O64 2008 DVDPublication Date: 1965
Peculiarities of National Hunting / Особенности национальной охоты (Osobennosti natsional’noi okhoty)
Length: 93 min.
In this comedy, a Russian allows a young Finnish hunter friend to participate in the Russian national hunt. The traditional Russian hunt of his dreams, however, is a far cry from this one and he learns more about certain other Russian habits.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .O675 2002 DVDPublication Date: 1995
Piter FM / Питер FM
Length: 84 min.
A lyrical comedy about young woman and her boyfriend as they try to make the right choice in their life.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.C55 P58 2006Publication Date: 2006
The Wedding / Свадьба (Svadʹba)
Length: 114 min.
A young miner, long out of work and money, has spent years suffering from his unrequited love for a beautiful young woman. After spending several years in Moscow, the woman returns even more unattainable. Yet she herself proposes marriage to the startled miner.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S83 2003 DVD
Documentary Films / Документальные фильмы
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14 Up: Born in the USSR
Length: 89 min.
Director: Sergei Miroshnichenko
Sequel to the documentary Age 7 in the USSR, this film follows up with the children 7 years later after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Call Number: Media HQ799.R8 A13 2013 DVDPublication Date: 1998
900 Days: Myth and Reality of the Siege of Leningrad
Documentary about the Blockade of Leningrad during World War II. The film presents an emotional picture of the struggle of some survivors, whose personal memories tend to be overshadowed by the heroic myth held up by the authorities. That myth is in painful contrast with the horrific truth they were forbidden to mention all these years.
Call Number: Media D764.3.L4 A194 2011 DVDPublication Date: 2011
Age 7 in the USSR (Born in the USSR)
Length: 66 min.
Director: Sergei Miroshnichenko
Shot two years prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, this program emulates the 7 Up documentary model in which a group of children reveal their thoughts and feelings on camera.
Call Number: Media HQ792.S65 A48 2013 DVDPublication Date: 1991
Ballerina / Балерина
Length: 77 min. Documents the lives of five ballerinas from the world renowned Kirov dance company. The film captures the magical masochism of the Russian prima ballerina with five women who eat, drink, bleed, and sweat ballet. They are Russia's pride and joy--the best at what they do. Each one has become ethereal and a star in her own right, fighting and clawing her way to glory in the Kirov company.
Call Number: Media Collection, GV1787 .B34 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2006- The BAM Zone: Permanent Members
Length: 18 min. The Baikal-Amur Mainline Railroad in Siberia is called the longest monument to the stagnation of the Brezhnev years. Behind the marches and songs praising the project, equipment was breaking down, lives were broken and souls became calloused.
Call Number: Media Collection, TK1362.S65 C34 2009 DVDPublication Date: 1987
Blue Eye of Siberia
2 videocassettes (ca. 53 min. each)
Description of Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world, and the pollution of some of its tributary rivers and of the lake itself. Special focus is given to the history of the area's development and the resulting social, economic and environmental impact.
Originally produced as a television program in 1990.
English and Russian with English subtitles.
Call Number: Media GB1756.B33 B48 1993Publication Date: 1993- Chernobyl: Chronicle of Difficult Weeks
Length: 53 min. This film crew was the first in the disaster zone following the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. They shot continuously for more than three months. Portions of the film are exposed with white blotches--a radiation leakage. (53 min.) 1986
Call Number: Media Collection, TK1362.S65 C34 2009 DVDPublication Date: 1986
CzechMate: In Search of Jiří Menzel
Length: 448 min. Examination of the life and career of filmmaker Jiří Menzel, and of the Czechoslovakian New Wave film movement. Includes interviews with Menzel and other filmmakers.
Call Number: Media Collection: PN1998.3.M4644 C97 2020 Blu-rayPublication Date: 2018
Dancer
Length: 85 min.
Sergei Polunin is a breathtaking ballet talent who questions his existence and his commitment to dance just as he is about to become a legend.
Call Number: Media GV1785.P65 D36 2017 DVDPublication Date: 2017
Dancing for Dollars
Length: 100 min.
The Bolshoi Ballet's first trip to America was a political and artistic triumph and audiences queued for days to see these legends of ballet. Bolshoi in Vegas, a richly entertaining documentary, follows their disastrous 1996 tour in which they hoped to capitalize on this earlier success. Kirov in Petersburg traces the development of an institution, which is both irremediably altered and condemned to trade on its past glories.
Call Number: Media Collection GV1785.8 .D36 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1997
Exporting Raymond
Follows Phil Rosenthal, creator of the hit TV series Everybody Loves Raymond, in his attempt to translate Raymond into a Russian sitcom. Rosenthal goes on a hilarious, warm, and intimate journey to a distant land to help people that don’t seem to want his help. Lost in Moscow, lost in his mission, lost in translation, Rosenthal tries to connect to his Russian colleagues but runs into unique characters and situations that conspire to drive him insane.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1992.75 .E96 2011
The Flames of Paris = Flammes de Paris (the Bolshoi Ballet )
Length: 124 min.
Interviews and rehearsals with Natalia Osipova, Ivan Vasiliev and Alexei Ratmansky. Filmed at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, March 2010.
Call Number: Media GV1790.F583 S67 2010Publication Date: 2010
Free to Rock
Length: 56 min. Rock and roll spread the sound of freedom across the Iron Curtain and throughout Eastern Europe and the USSR, despite Communist attempts to outlaw it and to crush what they perceived as a contamination of their youth. Over the years, thousands of underground bands and millions of young fans who yearned for Western values helped fuel the nonviolent implosion of the Soviet regime. Features interviews and performances.
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk; ML3534.6.S65 F74 2017 DVDPublication Date: 2017
Genghis Blues
The story of a Paul Pena, a blind American blues musician, and his trek to Tuva to live among its inhabitants and compete in their triennial khoomei (throat singing) contest. He is accompanied by a documentary film team and Tuvinian throat singer Kongar-ol Ondar. Languages: In English and Tuvinian with English subtitles
Call Number: Media Collection ML3680.7.T9 G45 2000Publication Date: 1999
The Harvest of Sorrow: The Memories of Sergei Rachmaninoff
A documentary on the life of Sergei Rachmaninoff, including brief segments from various performances of his instrumental and vocal works. Also includes appearances and personal narratives of the composer's relatives: Rachmaninoff's niece, Sofia Satina, and his grandson, Alexander Rachmaninoff. Originally produced as a documentary for television in 1998.
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk ML410.R3 H38 2009Publication Date: 1998
I am FEMEN
Length: 94 min.
They are known around the world as the topless female activists who fight corrupt and patriarchal political systems. Their weapon of choice is their bodies, which they place front and center in protests around the streets of Kiev, where the group began, and all across Europe.
Call Number: Media HQ1615.A3 I236 2014 DVDPublication Date: 2014
Igor Moiseyev and His World of Dance: A Profile of the Great Choreographer Featuring Performances of Ten of His Most Celebrated Works
Length: 78 min.
A profile of the great choreographer featuring performances of ten of his most celebrated works. Originally released as a motion picture in Russia in 1982.
Call Number: Media GV1663 .I367 2008 DVDPublication Date: 2008
In Pursuit of the Siberian Shaman
Length: 72 min.
A documentary on the revival of Buryat shamanism based on the field research on Olkhon Island. Also shows a behind- the-scenes look at an indigenous shaman living on the island as he moves between shamanic rituals performed for the local clientele and shows performed at various resorts for Western tourists in search of "primitive" cultures.
Call Number: Ethnographic Video Online: Volume IPublication Date: 2006
In the Name of Love: Modern Day Mail Order Brides
Russia’s dismal post-Soviet economy has given rise to widespread alcoholism, depression, and divorce. One consequence is that many desperate young Russian women turn to marriage agencies in a bid to escape--those linking Russian women with "rich" American men are thriving. Filmed principally in St. Petersburg over several years, this film examines the motiviations of two agency heads and follows several of these women as they seek a brighter future.
Call Number: Media Collection HQ1032 .I57 2002
Karl Marx and Marxism
The impact of Marx on the 20th century was all-pervasive and worldwide, costing tens of millions of lives where Communism was imposed, resulting in brutal wars to contain or expand it, and vastly improving the lives of workers where fear of Communism resulted in social reform. This program looks at the man, the roots of his philosophy, the causes and explanations of his philosophical development, and at its most direct outcome: the failed Soviet Union.
Call Number: Media Collection HX39.5 .K266 2004Publication Date: 1983
Katia and Volodia
A documentary about Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev, leading dancers with the Bolshoi Ballet, which features extensive performance footage, including excerpts from Romeo & Juliet (both the Prokofiev as well as a production conceived for them by Béjart), Anyuta, Spartacus, etc. They are also seen coaching younger dancers, including Eric Vu An, Assaf Messerer, Elisabeth Maurin, and Richard Wilk.
Call Number: Media Collection GV1785.A1 K38 2008 DVD
The Leningrad Legend
Length: 71 min.
A behind-the-scenes look at the Kirov Ballet and its determination to develop into a modern entity. Host Makarova visits the Vaganova School and reviews its 250 year history. Includes performance clips by some of the Kirov Ballet's most famous and respected dancers.
Call Number: Media GV1786.L4 L46 1989Publication Date: 1989
Maiia Plisetskaia / Майя Плисецкая
Prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, of the Bolshoi Ballet, is the subject of this documentary. Contains some rare films of her as a child, and highlights from Swan lake, Sleeping beauty, Spartacus, Romeo and Juliet, Dying swan, Raymonda, Stone flower, Don Quixote, and other ballets.
Call Number: Media Collection GV1785.P55 M3872 2003 DVDPublication Date: 1964
Makarova Returns
Length: 60 min.
Natalia Makarova returns to the Soviet Union after nearly 20 years of separation. This program includes her triumphant return to the Kirov stage where she began her illustrious career and features excerpts from her performances, and her personal reflections on her career as well as interviews with her family and members of the Kirov.
Call Number: Media GV1785.M26 M35 1992Publication Date: c1989
Meeting Gorbachev
Documentary filled with unforgettable archive materials and based on three never before seen interviews with Mikhail Gorbachev, the former General Secretary of the USSR. Celebrates Gorbachev's three remarkable accomplishments: negotiations with the US to reduce nuclear weapons, cessation of Soviet control of Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc.
Call Number: Media DK290.3.G67 M44 2019 DVDPublication Date: 2019
My Perestroika
Documentary that follows five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times, from their sheltered Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape of post-Soviet Russia. Together, these childhood classmates paint a complex picture of the dreams and disillusionments of those raised behind the Iron Curtain.
Call Number: Media Collection HN530.2.A8 M95 2010- New Samaritans
Length: 53 min.
The Samaritans are one of the most enigmatic people living in Israel today. They have lived separate ethnically, never intermarrying with either Arabs or Jews. The film tells the story of Yair and Rajaiiy who were given permission to marry wives from Ukraine and Russia, following the women's acculturation to the Samaritan religion. In Hebrew and Russian, with subtitles in English.
Call Number: Media DS129 .N4 2005Publication Date: 2005
Primo Levi's Journey
Length: 91 min.
In 1945, Primo Levi was liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp. With the war still underway, he embarked on a thousand-mile journey to his home in Turin, Italy. Retracing his historic trip, the film weaves a path through a modern Europe that has both changed and remained eerily the same--from democratic rallies in the East to neo-Nazi demonstrations in the West.
Call Number: Media D811 .L4173 2007Publication Date: 2007
Pussy Riot: a Punk Prayer
Founded in 2011, Pussy Riot is an anonymous feminist art collective/punk band based in Moscow. The group’s protest inside the Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral led to the members being arrested and tried for trespassing, wearing "inappropriate" sleeveless dresses and disrupting social order. Nadia, Masha, and Katia were accused of religious hatred in a trial that reverberated around the world and transformed the face of Russian society.
Call Number: Media Collection ML421.P877 P8779 2014
Putin’s Kiss
Length: 85 min.
Portrays contemporary life in Russia through the story of Masha, a 19 year-old girl who is a member of Nashi, a political youth organization connected with the Kremlin. Extremely ambitious, the young Masha quickly rises to the top of Nashi, but begins to question her involvement when a dissident journalist whom she has befriended is savagely attacked.
Call Number: Media Collection DK510.763 P8822 2012 DVDPublication Date: 2011
The Red Soul
Length: 90 min.
More than 50 years after the death of Joseph Stalin, Russia is still divided. Was Stalin a great leader who made Russia into a superpower? Or was he a ruthless dictator, responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people? The Red Soul shows how the past lives on in present-day Russia, and thus makes its mark on the future.
Call Number: Media DK510.33 .R43 2017 DVDPublication Date: 2017
Russian Opera at the Bolshoi
Length: 112 min.
A visual illustration of the glorious history of the Bolshoi opera, the theatre, its operatic productions and world-renowned star singers.
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk ML1737.8.M6 R87 2004Publication Date: 1999
Russians Deprived of Russia / Русские без России (Russkie bez Rossii)
Length: 324 min. Follows the lives of Russian Civil War emigres of the First Wave. It seeks to disclose their motives for leaving, to reveal their lives beyond the borders of their native land, to explore their contribution to the Russian and world cultures.
Call Number: Media Collection; DK510.36 .R85 2007Publication Date: 2003
Sergei Rachmaninoff Memories
Length: ca. 100 min.
A documentary on the life of Sergei Rachmaninoff, including brief segments from various performances of his instrumental and vocal works.
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk ML410.R3 S38 1999Publication Date: 1998
Standing on Sacred Ground
Documents how indigenous peoples stand up for their traditional sacred lands in defense of cultural survival, human rights and the environment. Volume 1: In the Russian republic of Altai, people create their own mountain parks and resist a gas pipeline. In English and Russian with English subtitles
Call Number: Media BL580 .S73 2013 DVDPublication Date: 2013- T'an bakhtale!: Good Fortune for You
This documentary was shot in Russia in 1993, and Roma people from different backgrounds describe what it means to be a Roma.
Publication Date: 2005
Tankograd
Documentary film about Cheliyabinsk, Russia, site of a former Soviet nuclear weapons facility and one of the most radioactively polluted places on earth. The story of Chelyabinsk is told from the point of view of the Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater’s dancers and choreographer, and within the context of their production of Prityazhenie (called "Celestial bodies" in English).
Call Number: Online Access: Use link in UCSB Library Catalog- Ukraine Sonata
As the shadow of Soviet control slipped away from the former satellite states, Ukraine stepped forward and declared its independence. Free of Moscow’s grip, gone is the state funding that supported the arts. Ukraine Sonata looks at the years before, during and after the great ’Perestroika’ of the Soviet Union and how the Independent Republic of Ukraine is negotiating the changes on a musical level.
Call Number: Media Collection ML309.U4 U397 2005 DVDPublication Date: 2005
Drama / Драма
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9th Company / 9 Рота (9 Rota)
Length: 130 minutes
This film depicts a year in the shared lives of a group of young soldiers drafted to serve in Afghanistan during the final year of the war. It is based on a real-life battle that took place 7-8 January 1988 on Hill 3234 during the last large-scale Soviet military operation Magistral, in which the 9th Company was pinned down under heavy fire, and managed to stop twelve attacks by 200-400 Muhjahideen.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .A1217 2005Publication Date: 2005
12
Length: 160 min.
Set in contemporary Moscow where 12 men must decide the fate of a young man accused of murdering his step-father. Consigned to a makeshift jury room, one by one each man takes center stage to confront, connect, and confess while the accused awaits a verdict and revisits his heartbreaking journey through war in flashbacks.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .D84 2009 DVDPublication Date: 2009
72 Meters / 72 метра (72 metra)
Length: 116 min.
The film begins in the 1980s Soviet Union. Two best friends serving at the Black Sea Navy Base in Sevastopol fall in love with the same beautiful girl. During routine training a disturbed WWII mine blasts the sub 72 meters below sea level. Then ensues a nerve-racking struggle for survival.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1993.5.R8 S46 2004 DVDPublication Date: 2004- Absurdistan / Абсурдистан
Length: 90 min.
Welcome to Absurdistan, a small village in the high desert mountains, just on the outskirts of reality, where magical visions and bizarre events fuse together. The village is facing a water shortage, but the men are too lazy to fix a rickety pipeline and the women are getting fed up with their good-for-nothing husbands. The women make a simple vow: ’No water, no sex.’
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2.A27 B735 2009Publication Date: 2008
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson / Приключения Шерлока Холмса и доктора Ватсона (Prikli͡uchenii͡a Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona)
Length: 193 min.
The master blackmailer -- The mortal fight -- The hunt for the tiger.
Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1980.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1980
Aelita : the Queen of Mars / Аэлита
Length: 111 min.
Based on the novel by A. Tolstoy.
Silent movie with English subtitles and music accompaniment.
An engineer living in Moscow dreams of the Queen of Mars and builds a spaceship to take him to her.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .A311415 1999 DVDPublication Date: 1924
Amphibian Man / Человек-амфибия (Chelovek-amfibiia)
Length: 97 min.
Based on the novel of the same name published in 1928 by Aleksandr Beliaev.
A famous scientist believes that if people were able to live in the ocean, they would be able to resolve all their economical and political problems. He creates the first human amphibian out of his son by transplanting gills onto him. The utopian project turns out tragically.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .C4462 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1961
Andrei Rublev / Андрей Рублев
Length: 205 min.
Story of the famed 15th century icon painter who survives the cruelties of medieval Russia and creates works of art.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.B55 A47 1998Publication Date: 1966
Ashik Kerib / Ашик-кериб
Length: 74 min.
From the story by Mikhail Lermontov.
Lermontov’s famous fable tells of Ashik Kerib, the wandering minstrel who is trying to earn enough money to marry the girl he loves. But when the father of his beloved spurns him, Ashik is forced to roam the land for 1,001 nights.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.A8455 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1988
Autumn Marathon / Осенний марафон (Osennii marafon)
Length: 94 min.
A mild-mannered college professor finds his life made difficult by hounding students, a nagging wife, a demanding mistress, and a neighbor who insists the professor jog with him each morning at dawn.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .O83 2000Publication Date: 1979
Avocations / Увлеченья (Uvlechenʹia)
Length: 107 min.
Based upon stories by Boris Dedikhin.
Bizarre idiosyncratic characters are all connected to the world of horse racing where sporting intrigues interlace with love affairs.
Call Number: Media PN 1997 .U95 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1994
Barber of Siberia / Сибирский цирюльник (Sibirskii tsiriul’nik)
Length: 180 min.
A foreign entrepreneur [Richard Harris] ventures to Russia in 1885 with dreams of selling a new experimental steam-driven harvester in the wilds of Siberia. Julia Ormond portrays his assistant, who falls in love with a young Russian officer [Oleg Menshikov], and spends the next 10 years perfecting the harvester and pursuing her love, who has been exiled to Siberia.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .S525 2001 DVDPublication Date: 1998
Battleship Potemkin / Броненосец "Потемкин" (Bronenosets “Potemkin”)
Length: 69 minutes, silent film
Director Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned by the Soviet government to make a movie commemorating the failed uprising of 1905, a mere 20 years after the actual incident. Eisenstein duly hails as heroes the people whose actions were regarded as traitorous in 1905. The film remains remarkable for the way it builds tension over a brisk 69 minutes, and in the right setting with the right audience, can still reveal its inflammatory power.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.75 .B37 2007Publication Date: 1925
Burnt by the Sun / Утомлённые солнцем (Utomlennye solntsem)
Length: 135 min.
A hero of the Russian revolution is spending the summer in the country with his young daughter, his wife and her eccentric family. When his wife’s childhood love suddenly appears, the happy family is targeted and destroyed by Stalin’s secret police.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .B864 2003Publication Date: 1994
The Chronicles of Melanie / Melānijas hronika
Length: 120 min.
A terrifying account of the mass deportation of residents of Soviet-occupied Latvia that occurred in June of 1941 based on the memoirs of Melanija Venaga. Melanie was one of over 17,000 people deported to Siberia and separated from her husband. The three week journey on the cattle cars to Siberia is just the beginning of the long and brutal exile.
Latvian, Russian & German dialogue; English subtitles.
Call Number: Media PN1997.2 .C4946 2018 DVDPublication Date: 2016
Cold Summer of 1953 / Холодное лето пятьдесят третьего… (Kholodnoye leto pyatdesyat tretyego)
Length: 96 min.
After the Stalin’s death, hardened criminals as well as political prisoners were granted amnesty. As two political prisoners await a boat in a small village, they must defend the villagers from the descending swarm of criminals also looking to find their way.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.K56 K56 2004Publication Date: 2004
Come and See / Иди и смотри (Idi i smotri)
Length: 145 min.
Based on "The story of Khatyn" by Ales Adamovich.
The horrific and harrowing experiences of a young boy, Florya, who comes of age during the brutal German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.F67 I25 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1985
The Cranes are Flying / Летят журавли (Letiat zhuravli)
Length: 94 min.
Based on the play with the same title by Victor Rozov.
When Veronica’s lover, Boris, goes to war, she moves in with Boris’ family. His cousin seduces her and out of guilt she marrys him. Unhappy in her marriage and still in love with Boris she leaves her husband to wait for Boris to return. Later she learns Boris has been killed in the war.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.F67 L485 2002 DVDPublication Date: 1957
A Cruel Romance / Жестокий романс (Zhestokii romans)
Length: 145 min.
Based on the play "Bespridannitsa" by A.N. Ostrovsky.
Larisa Ogudalova, the heroine, loses security in marriage and life for love.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .Z477 2003 DVDPublication Date: 1984
The Cuckoo / Кукушка (Kukushka)
Length: 103 min.
In a land torn apart by war, two men on opposite sides are about to find out they have one thing in common. Wounded and emotionally tortured, they are taken in by Anni, a young war widow. None of them understands the person’s languages, but it doesn’t seem to matter. After a hard day at work on Anni’s farm, who needs words.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .C83 2003Publication Date: 2002
Dersu Uzala / Дерсу Узала
Length: 140 min.
Director Akira Kurosawa's film based on the book by Vladimir Klavdievich Arsenʹev.
Tells of the friendship between Vladimir Arsenyev, a well-known Soviet explorer, and his guide, Dersu Uzala. It is the story of a man’s unity with nature and of the struggle for survival in the wilderness.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .D454 2000Publication Date: 1975
Doctor Zhivago / Доктор Живаго (Doktor Zhivago)
Length: 848 min.
Based on the novel by Boris Pasternak.
A poet and surgeon, husband and lover finds his life disrupted by war and revolution. It alters the lives of many, including Tonya, the gentle woman he marries and Lara, the woman he cannot forget. (11-episode serial, made for television)
Call Number: Media Collection PN1992.8.F5 .D63 2011Publication Date: 2011
East-West / Est-ouest / Восток-Запад (Vostok-Zapad)
Length: 121 min.
Follows the plight of a young couple and their child as they choose to go back to the Soviet Union in 1946.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.E283 W3 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1999
The Edge / Край (Krai)
Length: 117 min.
The action takes place shortly after the end of the Second World War in the Siberian hinterland, among Russians and Germans with damaged personal stories and a strange transformation: the victors seem to be crawling into the skins of the defeated, and vice versa. Ignat, is the embodiment of the larger-than-life image of the Soviet victorious warrior who, in fact, proves to be shell-shocked, sick and broken, although not completely destroyed.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .K723 2010 DVDPublication Date: 2010
Elena / Елена
Length: 109 min
The story of Elena and Vladimir, an older couple. The wealthy but stingy Vladimir treats Elena more like a servant than a wife. They each have children from their first marriages, a son and a daughter. When Vladimir declares that he’s decided to change his will so that his daughter will receive all his money, Elena then resorts to a desperate step.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .E446 2012 DVDPublication Date: 2011
Everything is Illuminated
Length: 105 min.
A young American man (Elijah Wood), with the help of a local who speaks weirdly broken English, journeys to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II in a Ukrainian village that was ultimately razed by the Nazis. Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.M45 E94 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2005
Furious / Легенда о Коловрате / Legenda o Kolovrate
Length: 118 min.
A story of a legendary battle, where seventeen fearless warriors defend their land against an army of thousands of well-trained soldiers.
Call Number: Media PN1997.2 .F8675 2018 DVDPublication Date: 2017
Hard to be a God / Трудно быть богом (Trudno bytʹ bogom)
Length: 177 min.
A group of space travelers stumble upon an alien civilization on an earthlike planet with a medieval society. A man is sent to observe it and perhaps help it evolve; instead he finds his own humanist culture slipping from him. Based on the 1964 science fiction novel with the same title, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .T783 2013 DVDPublication Date: 2013
Hipsters / Стиляги (Stiliagi)
Length: 89 min.
While the Cold War heats up on the world stage, rebellious youth in 1955 Moscow wage a cultural battle against dismal Soviet conformity, donning brightly colored black-market clothing, adopting American nicknames and reveling in forbidden jazz.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .H57 2013Publication Date: 2008
His Last Bow / Двадцатый век начинается (Dvadtsatyii vek nachinaetsia)
Length: 148 min.
England on the eve of World War I. This time Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are getting involved in a political intrigue. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1986.
Call Number: Media PN1992.8.D48 D83 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1986
The Hound of the Baskervilles / Собака Баскервилей (Sobaka Baskervileĭ)
Length: 146 min.
One member of a venerable English family of Baskervilles dies in mysterious circumstances. The famous Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson will investigate this case. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1981.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .H68217 2007Publication Date: 1981
How I Ended This Summer / Как я провёл этим летом (Kak ya provel etim letom)
Length: 130 min.
On a desolate island in the Arctic Circle, two men work at a small meteorological station, taking readings from their radioactive surroundings. Sergei, a gruff professional in his fifties, takes his job very seriously. His new partner, bright-eyed college grad Pavel, retreats to his MP3 player and video games to avoid Sergei’s imposing presence.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.F67 H69 2011 DVDPublication Date: 2010
Ida
Length: 80 min.
Poland 1962. On the eve of her vows, 18 year old Anna meets her estranged Aunt Wanda, a cynical Communist judge who shocks the naive Anna with a stunning revelation: Anna is Jewish and her real name is Ida. Ida and Wanda embark on a revelatory journey to their old family house to discover the fate of Ida’s birth parents and unearth dark secrets dating back to the Nazi occupation. Language: Polish dialogue, with optional English and French subtitles.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .I33 2014 DVDPublication Date: 2013
In the Land of Blood and Honey
Length: 126 min.
In the midst of 1990s war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina and ethnic cleansing, Serbian soldier Danijel protects his lover Ajla, a Muslim artist, who is now captive in the camp he oversees.
Call Number: Media Collection DR1660 .I68 2012 DVDPublication Date: 2011- Irony of Fate, or, Enjoy your Bath! / Ирония суд’бы, или С легким паром! (Ironiia sud’by, ili S legkim parom!)
Length: 186 min.
Adventures of a young Moscow doctor on New Year’s Eve.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .I76 2008 DVDPublication Date: 1975
The Island / Остров (Ostrov)
Length: 112 min.
Somewhere in Northern Russia, in a small Russian Orthodox monastery, lives a very unusual man. His fellow monks are confused by his bizarre conduct. Those who visit the island believe that the man has the power to heal, exorcise demons and foretell the future. However, he considers himself unworthy because of a sin he committed in his youth. This parable about faith and salvation combines the realities of everyday Russian life with monastic ritual and routine.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.F67 O88 2007Publication Date: 2006- Ivan Vassilyevich Changes Occupation / Иван Васил’евич меняет профессию (Ivan Vasil’evich meniaet professiiu)
Length: 90 min.
One day young engineer Timofeev discovers that the device invented by him works as a time machine.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.85 .I84 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1973
Karamazov Brothers / Братья Карамазовы (Brat'ia Karamazovy)
Length: 440 min.
Television mini-series adaptation of the book by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Call Number: Media PG3326.B7 M67 2009 DVDPublication Date: 2009
Khrustalyov, my car! / Хрусталёв, машину! (Khrustalev, mashinu!)
Length: 140 min.
Set in the last days of Stalin’s rule in winter 1953, the film follows military doctor General Klenskii and his family as they are caught up in a web of terror.
Call Number: Media PN1995.9.F67 K478 2005 DVDPublication Date: 1998
Letter Never Sent / Неотправленное письмо (Neotpravlennoe pis’mo)
Length: 96 min.
Based on the story by Valerii Osipov.
This absorbing tale of exploration and survival concerns four members of a geological expedition who are stranded in the bleak and unforgiving Siberian wilderness while on a mission to find diamonds. Sometimes titled "The Undelivered Letter".
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .L48 2012 DVDPublication Date: 2012
Leviathan / Левиафан (Leviafan)
Length: 141 min.
Kolya lives in a small fishing town near the stunning Barents Sea in Northern Russia. He owns an auto-repair shop that stands right next to the house where he lives with his young wife Lilya and his son Roma. The town’s corrupt mayor is determined to take away his business, his house, and his land.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .L495 2015 DVDPublication Date: 2014
Master and Margarita / Мастер и Маргарита (Master i Margarita)
Length: 495 min., miniseries
Set in Moscow during the time of Stalin, several story-lines are intertwined. A writer (the Master) has produced a manuscript of a play about Pontius Pilate. It appears that government agents are intent on suppressing the manuscript. Paranoia sets in as the Master believes that not only the Devil himself is after him, but that his assistant Margarita is conspiring with the forces of evil. Paralleling this is the story of Yeshua and Pontius Pilate. Throughout, the evil Professor of Black Magic and his otherworldly group are manipulating public events and people’s lives. Serial, made for television.
Call Number: Media Collection PG3476.B78 M32 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2006- Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears / Москва слезам не верит (Moskva slezam ne verit)
Length: 150 min.
A romantic comedy about three young, working-class, country girls, who go to Moscow in 1958 to seek work, men, and success. The story then jumps forward twenty years to look at the results of their expedition.
Call Number: Media Collection PG3476.B78 M32 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2006
Night Watch / Ночной дозор (Nochnoi dozor)
Length: 114 minutes
Based on the novel by Sergei Lukianenko. Living among humans are those who possess various supernatural powers. They are divided into the forces of light and the forces of the dark. Centuries ago both sides signed a treaty to end a war. Now the battle is about to happen again.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .N5448 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2004
Of Freaks and Men / Про уродов и людей (Pro urodov i liudei))
Length: 89 min.
Explores the seamy underside of the early 20th century upper classes.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1993.5.R9 O34 2001 DVDPublication Date: 1998
Our Own / Свой (Svoi)
Length: 111 min.
During World War II, three prisoners escape from German detention and flee to a small village where they hope to take refuge. One of the men has been collaborating with the Germans, and must soon face a dire choice. Nothing is certain, no one is safe.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .O97 2008 DVDPublication Date: 2004
Passions (Avocations) / Увлеченья (Uvlechenʹia)
Length: 107 min.
Based upon stories by Boris Dedikhin. Bizarre idiosyncratic characters are all connected to the world of horse racing where sporting intrigues interlace with love affairs.
Call Number: Media Collections PN 1997 .U95 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1994- Peculiarities of National Hunting / Особенности национальной охоты (Osobennosti natsional’noi okhoty)
Length: 93 min.
In this comedy, a Russian allows a young Finnish hunter friend to participate in the Russian national hunt. The traditional Russian hunt of his dreams, however, is a far cry from this one and he learns more about certain other Russian habits.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .O675 2002 DVDPublication Date: 1995
- Piter FM / Питер FM
Length: 84 min.
A lyrical comedy about young woman and her boyfriend as they try to make the right choice in their life.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.C55 P58 2006Publication Date: 2006
Planet of Storms / Планета бурь (Planeta burʹ)
Length: 78 min.
A team of cosmonauts, consisting of six men, one woman, and one robot, land on Venus. They discover an ancient culture and carnivorous plants.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .P5175 2011 DVDPublication Date: 1961
Prisoner of the Mountains / Кавказский пленник (Kavkazskii plennik)
Length: 1 hr. 39 min.
A Russian army patrol is ambushed by Caucasian rebels and two survivors are taken prisoner by a local patriarch who is hoping to barter them for the release of his captured son. A bond of understanding develops between the soldiers and their captors, but it is broken when plans for their release go awry and a chain of violence and retaliation is precipitated.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .K38 2003 DVDPublication Date: 1996
Professor Dowell's Testament / Завещание профессора Доуэля (Zaveshchanie professora Douelia)
Length: 91 min.
Based on Aleksandr Beliaev’s novel, Professor Dowell’s head. After sharing the results of his research on immortality with his colleagues, Professor Dowell disappears and his assistant uses their work for criminal purposes.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.85 .Z38 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1984
Quiet Flows the Don / Тихий Дон (Tikhiii Don)
Length: 426 min.
Film in three parts, from the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, which depicts the struggle of class interest, social habits and human temperaments through the historic events such as the first World War, the October Revolution, the Civil War, and the first years of Soviet power.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .T553 2005 DVDPublication Date: 1959
A Railway Station for Two / Вокзал для двоих (Vokzal dlia dvoikh)
Length: 141 min.
The adventures of a former concert pianist Ryabinin on an overnight pass from a Siberian labor camp.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .V654 2004 DVDPublication Date: 1982
The Red and the White / Csillagosok Katonák
Length: 90 min.
This film about the absurdity and arbitrariness of war is set in Central Russia during the Civil War of 1918. It details the battles between the Red soldiers of Russia, aided by Hungarian Communists, and the counter-revolutionary Whites in the hills along the Volga River. Banned in Russian for many years. In Hungarian and Russian with English subtitles.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .C8868 2001Publication Date: 1968
The Return / Возвращение (Vozvrashchenie)
Length: 105 min.
Within the emotional vacuum of a fatherless childhood, two young brothers have grown closer than most siblings. But when they least expect it, the father the boys have never known returns. Under the cool midnight sun of a coastal Russian summer, Andrei and Ivan eagerly hop into a car for a week long fishing trip with a complete stranger they desperately need to believe is their father.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .R488 2004Publication Date: 2003
Russian Ark / Русский ковчег (Russkii kovcheg)
Length: 99 min.
A modern filmmaker magically finds himself transported to the 18th century where he embarks on a time-traveling journey through 300 years of Russian history. The first feature film ever created in a single take.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .R87 2013 DVDPublication Date: 2002
The Seagull / Чайка (Chaika)
Length: 95 min.
Two writers and one actress strive for the ideal of artistic perfection. Set in the late 19th century Russia, unreciprocated love in three linked romantic triangles influence the paths their lives follow, with the seagull the representation of love for one of the writers. Originally released as a motion picture in 1970. Based on the play by Anton Chekhov.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .C422 2008 DVDPublication Date: 1970
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson / Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон (Sherlok Kholms i doktor Vatson)
Length: 134 min.
A classic adaptation of short stories about genius detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Doctor Watson. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1979.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1979
The Sign of Four / Сокровища агры (Sokrovishcha agry)
Length: 145 min.
Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced by Lenfilm Film Studio in 1983.
Call Number: Media PN1992.8.D48 S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1983
Since Otar left / С тех пор, как уехал Отар (S tekh por, kak uekhal Otar)
Length: 99 min.
Three generations of women share a rundown flat in T’bilisi, the capital city of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Eka’s beloved only son, the titular Otar, is in France. A trained doctor, he sends money home from his menial jobs as an undocumented laborer. When he is killed in an accident, Marina and Ada weave an intricate web of deception to spare the old woman from heartbreak. But what will happen when Eka decides to visit Otar in Paris?
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .D443 2005Publication Date: 2003
Solaris / Солярис (Solaris)
Length: 169 min.
Based on the science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem. Ground control has been receiving strange transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to investigate, he experiences the strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his own consciousness.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.S65 S65 2002 DVDPublication Date: 1972
Stalker / Сталкер (Stalker)
Length: 163 min.
At the center of an outlawed region called The Zone lies a mystical room altered by unnatural forces. Armed guards are the first in a series of lethal obstructions that prevent outsiders from reaching the place where fantastic powers can fulfill man’s greatest desires. Only the Stalker can lead a scientist and writer through The Zone where an obstacle course of mental and physical barriers tests the limits of their endurance.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .S72 2006 DVDPublication Date: 1979
Strike / Стачка (Stachka)
Length: 94 min.
Triggered by the suicide of a worker unjustly accused of theft, a strike is called by the laborers of a Moscow factory. The managers, owner and the Czarist government dispatch infiltrators in an attempt to break the workers unity. Unsuccessful, they hire the police and, in the film's most harrowing and powerful sequences, the unarmed strikers are slaughtered in a brutal confrontation. Silent film with music; Russian intertitles and English subtitles.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S7225 2016 DVDPublication Date: 1925
Tangerines
Length: 87 min.
The story of awakening humanity in the midst of violence. An older Estonian man cares for two wounded soldiers from opposite sides of the 1990s-era war in Georgia. In Estonian, Russian & Georgian; English subtitles.
Call Number: Media PN1995.9 D667 T36 2014 DVDPublication Date: 2014
Taxi Blues / Такси-блюз (Taksi-Blyuz)
Length: 110 min.
Ivan is a thick, dour, hard-working brute. He misses Communism. He drives a taxi and one night meets Alexi. Alexi is a musician, an alcoholic, not to mention, irresponsible. Alexi stiffs Ivan for the fare and Ivan decides to track him down and a love-hate relationship ensues.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .T395 2009 DVDPublication Date: 1990
Text / Текст (Tekst)
Length: 94 min. Ilya Goryunov is 27, and has spent the last seven years in prison on a false charge of dealing drugs. Finally outside, he's driven by his desire for revenge against Petr, the rich kid who framed him and ruined his life. When the two come face to face, Ilya impulsively kills Petr and takes his smartphone, giving him access to the man's life-pictures, videos, conversations with his parents and girlfriend and strange messages from colleagues full of unspoken words and threats. Ilya takes Petr's place. In the virtual world, at least.
Call Number: Media Collection, PN1997.2 .T457 2019 DVDPublication Date: 2019
The Thief / Вор (Vor)
Length: 94 min.
In 1946 a soldier fathers a child and dies before his birth. SIx years later, the mother and the child meet a handsome soldier in a train. An incredible story of much deceptions, heartbreaks and betrayals ensue.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .V67 2009 DVDPublication Date: 1997
Tycoon: A New Russian / Олигарх (Oligarkh)
Length: 128 min.
Adapted form the novel by Yuli Dubov. A stylish, slick crime drama based on the life of notorious billionaire Boris Berezovsky, Tycoon follows the life of Plato Makovski, a renegade Russian entrepreneur whose seductive and brutal climb to the top in the post-Soviet era flourishes as the line between business, crime and politics breaks down. Tycoon is an epic tale of a visionary and scoundrel, and, in the end, a bridge between the old Russia and the new.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .T936 2004 DVDPublication Date: 2002
Vodka Lemon
Length: 86 min.
A small Armenian village faces tough times after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hamo is a widower with a small military pension and three useless sons. While making one of his daily visits to his wife’s grave he meets Nina and the two begin to date. In Armenian, Russian and Kurdish, with optional English subtitles.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .V63 2005Publication Date: 2003
War and Peace / Война и мир (Voina i mir)
Length: 401 min.
Based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy. Epic portrayal of Tolstoy’s novel of Russia during the Napoleonic invasion at the turn of the 19th century.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.V65 V65 2007 DVDPublication Date: 2007
The Way Back
Length: 133 min.
Janusz, a Polish prisoner of war, is forced to sign a false confession and shipped off to Siberia to rot in the most brutal prison system in the world--the Gulag. In prison, he meets a renowned Russian actor, an American architect, and a hardened Russian gangster. Janusz convinces six of his fellows to accompany him in an escape, which improbably succeeds, and then the real trial begins--a punishing race against the elements, time, hunger, and fear.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .W39 2011 DVDPublication Date: 2010
The White Crow / Белая ворона (Belaya vorona)
Length: 127 min.
Capturing the raw physicality and brilliance of Rudolf Nureyev, whose escape to the West stunned the world at the height of the Cold War. With his magnetic presence, Nureyev emerged as ballet's most famous star, a wild and beautiful dancer limited by the world of 1950s Leningrad. His flirtation with Western artists and ideas leads him into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the KGB.
Call Number: Media PN1997.2 .W55 2019 DVDPublication Date: 2019
White Sun of the Desert / Белое солнце пустыни (Beloe solntse pustyni)
Length: 80 min.
A recently discharged soldier makes his way across the desert, seeking only to get to his native village. He happens to be in the area usually occupied by a bandit and his gang. The bandit has left, abandoning all the women connected with the gang, and it falls to the soldier to help them get to safety.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.B3664 2003 DVDPublication Date: 1969
Window to Paris / Окно в Париж (Okno v Parizh)
Length: 120 min.
A young musician discovers a magic window which takes him and his friends from his rundown Russian apartment to the streets of Paris.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1993.5.R8 O36 2009 DVDPublication Date: 1994
Film Adaptations / Экранизация
Hover your mouse over the "i" icon to read a description of the film.
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson / Приключения Шерлока Холмса и доктора Ватсона (Prikli͡uchenii͡a Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona)
Length: 193 min.
The master blackmailer -- The mortal fight -- The hunt for the tiger.
Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1980.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1980
- Aelita : the Queen of Mars / Аэлита
Length: 111 min.
Based on the novel by A. Tolstoy.
Silent movie with English subtitles and music accompaniment.
An engineer living in Moscow dreams of the Queen of Mars and builds a spaceship to take him to her.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .A311415 1999 DVDPublication Date: 1924
- Amphibian Man / Человек-амфибия (Chelovek-amfibiia)
Length: 97 min.
Based on the novel of the same name published in 1928 by Aleksandr Beliaev.
A famous scientist believes that if people were able to live in the ocean, they would be able to resolve all their economical and political problems. He creates the first human amphibian out of his son by transplanting gills onto him. The utopian project turns out tragically.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .C4462 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1961
- Ashik Kerib / Ашик-кериб
Length: 74 min.
From the story by Mikhail Lermontov.
Lermontov’s famous fable tells of Ashik Kerib, the wandering minstrel who is trying to earn enough money to marry the girl he loves. But when the father of his beloved spurns him, Ashik is forced to roam the land for 1,001 nights.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.A8455 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1988
- Avocations / Увлеченья (Uvlechenʹia)
Length: 107 min.
Based upon stories by Boris Dedikhin.
Bizarre idiosyncratic characters are all connected to the world of horse racing where sporting intrigues interlace with love affairs.
Call Number: Media PN 1997 .U95 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1994
- Come and See / Иди и смотри (Idi i smotri)
Length: 145 min.
Based on "The story of Khatyn" by Ales Adamovich.
The horrific and harrowing experiences of a young boy, Florya, who comes of age during the brutal German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.F67 I25 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1985
- The Cranes are Flying / Летят журавли (Letiat zhuravli)
Length: 94 min.
Based on the play with the same title by Victor Rozov.
When Veronica’s lover, Boris, goes to war, she moves in with Boris’ family. His cousin seduces her and out of guilt she marrys him. Unhappy in her marriage and still in love with Boris she leaves her husband to wait for Boris to return. Later she learns Boris has been killed in the war.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.F67 L485 2002 DVDPublication Date: 1957
- A Cruel Romance / Жестокий романс (Zhestokii romans)
Length: 145 min.
Based on the play "Bespridannitsa" by A.N. Ostrovsky.
Larisa Ogudalova, the heroine, loses security in marriage and life for love.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .Z477 2003 DVDPublication Date: 1984
- Dersu Uzala / Дерсу Узала
Length: 140 min.
Director Akira Kurosawa's film based on the book by Vladimir Klavdievich Arsenʹev.
Tells of the friendship between Vladimir Arsenyev, a well-known Soviet explorer, and his guide, Dersu Uzala. It is the story of a man’s unity with nature and of the struggle for survival in the wilderness.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .D454 2000Publication Date: 1975
Despair
Length: 121 min.
Based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov.
Hermann Hermann, a Russian emigrant and successful chocolate magnate, starts to experience hallucinations. One day, he meets Felix and is sure that this man is his doppelganger. His delusional thinking leads him to hatch a plan to relieve him of his mental anguish. Language: English
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .D4547 2011 DVDPublication Date: 1978- Doctor Zhivago / Доктор Живаго (Doktor Zhivago)
Length: 848 min.
Based on the novel by Boris Pasternak.
A poet and surgeon, husband and lover finds his life disrupted by war and revolution. It alters the lives of many, including Tonya, the gentle woman he marries and Lara, the woman he cannot forget. (11-episode serial, made for television)
Call Number: Media Collection PN1992.8.F5 .D63 2011Publication Date: 2011
- Hard to be a God / Трудно быть богом (Trudno bytʹ bogom)
Length: 177 min.
A group of space travelers stumble upon an alien civilization on an earthlike planet with a medieval society. A man is sent to observe it and perhaps help it evolve; instead he finds his own humanist culture slipping from him. Based on the 1964 science fiction novel with the same title, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .T783 2013 DVDPublication Date: 2013
- His Last Bow / Двадцатый век начинается (Dvadtsatyii vek nachinaetsia)
Length: 148 min.
England on the eve of World War I. This time Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are getting involved in a political intrigue. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1986.
Call Number: Media PN1992.8.D48 D83 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1986
- The Hound of the Baskervilles / Собака Баскервилей (Sobaka Baskervileĭ)
Length: 146 min.
One member of a venerable English family of Baskervilles dies in mysterious circumstances. The famous Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson will investigate this case. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1981.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .H68217 2007Publication Date: 1981
- Karamazov Brothers / Братья Карамазовы (Brat'ia Karamazovy)
Length: 440 min.
Television mini-series adaptation of the book by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Call Number: Media PG3326.B7 M67 2009 DVDPublication Date: 2009
- Letter Never Sent / Неотправленное письмо (Neotpravlennoe pis’mo)
Length: 96 min.
Based on the story by Valerii Osipov.
This absorbing tale of exploration and survival concerns four members of a geological expedition who are stranded in the bleak and unforgiving Siberian wilderness while on a mission to find diamonds. Sometimes titled "The Undelivered Letter".
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .L48 2012 DVDPublication Date: 2012
Lolita (1962)
Length: 153 min.
Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s celebrated yet infamous 1955 novel. It chronicles a middle-aged literature professor’s unusual and doomed sexual passion/obsession for a seductively precocious pubescent "nymphet" named Lolita.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .L66 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1962
Lolita (1998)
Length: 137 min.
Based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov. A middle-aged man marries an oppressive widow in order to be near and carry on an affair with her nymphet daughter.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .L66 2003 DVDPublication Date: 1998
The Luzhin Defence
Length: 109 min.
Based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Two worlds collide when an eccentric genius falls in love with a strong-willed society beauty.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .L89 2015 DVDPublication Date: 2000- Master and Margarita / Мастер и Маргарита (Master i Margarita)
Length: 495 min., miniseries
Set in Moscow during the time of Stalin, several story-lines are intertwined. A writer (the Master) has produced a manuscript of a play about Pontius Pilate. It appears that government agents are intent on suppressing the manuscript. Paranoia sets in as the Master believes that not only the Devil himself is after him, but that his assistant Margarita is conspiring with the forces of evil. Paralleling this is the story of Yeshua and Pontius Pilate. Throughout, the evil Professor of Black Magic and his otherworldly group are manipulating public events and people’s lives. Serial, made for television.
Call Number: Media Collection PG3476.B78 M32 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2006
- Night Watch / Ночной дозор (Nochnoi dozor)
Length: 114 minutes
Based on the novel by Sergei Lukianenko. Living among humans are those who possess various supernatural powers. They are divided into the forces of light and the forces of the dark. Centuries ago both sides signed a treaty to end a war. Now the battle is about to happen again.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .N5448 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2004
- Passions (Avocations) / Увлеченья (Uvlechenʹia)
Length: 107 min.
Based upon stories by Boris Dedikhin. Bizarre idiosyncratic characters are all connected to the world of horse racing where sporting intrigues interlace with love affairs.
Call Number: Media Collections PN 1997 .U95 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1994
- Professor Dowell's Testament / Завещание профессора Доуэля (Zaveshchanie professora Douelia)
Length: 91 min.
Based on Aleksandr Beliaev’s novel, Professor Dowell’s head. After sharing the results of his research on immortality with his colleagues, Professor Dowell disappears and his assistant uses their work for criminal purposes.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.85 .Z38 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1984
- Quiet Flows the Don / Тихий Дон (Tikhiii Don)
Length: 426 min.
Film in three parts, from the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, which depicts the struggle of class interest, social habits and human temperaments through the historic events such as the first World War, the October Revolution, the Civil War, and the first years of Soviet power.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .T553 2005 DVDPublication Date: 1959
- The Seagull / Чайка (Chaika)
Length: 95 min.
Two writers and one actress strive for the ideal of artistic perfection. Set in the late 19th century Russia, unreciprocated love in three linked romantic triangles influence the paths their lives follow, with the seagull the representation of love for one of the writers. Originally released as a motion picture in 1970. Based on the play by Anton Chekhov.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .C422 2008 DVDPublication Date: 1970
- Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson / Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон (Sherlok Kholms i doktor Vatson)
Length: 134 min.
A classic adaptation of short stories about genius detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Doctor Watson. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1979.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1979
- The Sign of Four / Сокровища агры (Sokrovishcha agry)
Length: 145 min.
Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced by Lenfilm Film Studio in 1983.
Call Number: Media PN1992.8.D48 S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1983
- Solaris / Солярис (Solaris)
Length: 169 min.
Based on the science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem. Ground control has been receiving strange transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to investigate, he experiences the strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his own consciousness.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.S65 S65 2002 DVDPublication Date: 1972
- Stalker / Сталкер (Stalker)
Length: 163 min.
At the center of an outlawed region called The Zone lies a mystical room altered by unnatural forces. Armed guards are the first in a series of lethal obstructions that prevent outsiders from reaching the place where fantastic powers can fulfill man’s greatest desires. Only the Stalker can lead a scientist and writer through The Zone where an obstacle course of mental and physical barriers tests the limits of their endurance.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .S72 2006 DVDPublication Date: 1979
- Tycoon: A New Russian / Олигарх (Oligarkh)
Length: 128 min.
Adapted form the novel by Yuli Dubov. A stylish, slick crime drama based on the life of notorious billionaire Boris Berezovsky, Tycoon follows the life of Plato Makovski, a renegade Russian entrepreneur whose seductive and brutal climb to the top in the post-Soviet era flourishes as the line between business, crime and politics breaks down. Tycoon is an epic tale of a visionary and scoundrel, and, in the end, a bridge between the old Russia and the new.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .T936 2004 DVDPublication Date: 2002
- War and Peace / Война и мир (Voina i mir)
Length: 401 min.
Based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy. Epic portrayal of Tolstoy’s novel of Russia during the Napoleonic invasion at the turn of the 19th century.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.V65 V65 2007 DVDPublication Date: 2007
- The Way Back
Length: 133 min.
Janusz, a Polish prisoner of war, is forced to sign a false confession and shipped off to Siberia to rot in the most brutal prison system in the world--the Gulag. In prison, he meets a renowned Russian actor, an American architect, and a hardened Russian gangster. Janusz convinces six of his fellows to accompany him in an escape, which improbably succeeds, and then the real trial begins--a punishing race against the elements, time, hunger, and fear.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .W39 2011 DVDPublication Date: 2010
Music & Dance / Музыка и танец
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- Ballerina / Балерина
Length: 77 min. Documents the lives of five ballerinas from the world renowned Kirov dance company. The film captures the magical masochism of the Russian prima ballerina with five women who eat, drink, bleed, and sweat ballet. They are Russia's pride and joy--the best at what they do. Each one has become ethereal and a star in her own right, fighting and clawing her way to glory in the Kirov company.
Call Number: Media Collection, GV1787 .B34 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2006
Boris Godunov / Борис Годунов
Boris Godunov : an opera / by Modest Mussorgsky [after Pushkin and Karamzin]. Film adaptation of the opera about Boris Godunov, "the Russian czar whose regime and life are threatened by the False Dmitri, a pretender to the throne"
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk ; M1500.M88 B6 2004Publication Date: 1954- Dancer
Length: 85 min.
Sergei Polunin is a breathtaking ballet talent who questions his existence and his commitment to dance just as he is about to become a legend.
Call Number: Media GV1785.P65 D36 2017 DVDPublication Date: 2017
- Dancing for Dollars
Length: 100 min.
The Bolshoi Ballet's first trip to America was a political and artistic triumph and audiences queued for days to see these legends of ballet. Bolshoi in Vegas, a richly entertaining documentary, follows their disastrous 1996 tour in which they hoped to capitalize on this earlier success. Kirov in Petersburg traces the development of an institution, which is both irremediably altered and condemned to trade on its past glories.
Call Number: Media Collection GV1785.8 .D36 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1997
Eugene Onegin / Евгений Онегин (Evgenii Onegin)
Length: 106 min.
Larina, the mother of Tatiana and Olga, is visited at her country estate by Lenski, a neighbouring proprietor, who is engaged to Olga. He brings with him his friend Eugene Onegin. Tatiana, sees in Eugene the hero of her girlish dreams and falls in love with him. A complex tale of love and jealousy based on the poem by Alexander Pushkin. Classic motion picture of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (opera).
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk M1500.T35 E8 2007Publication Date: 1958- The Flames of Paris = Flammes de Paris (the Bolshoi Ballet )
Length: 124 min.
Interviews and rehearsals with Natalia Osipova, Ivan Vasiliev and Alexei Ratmansky. Filmed at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, March 2010.
Call Number: Media GV1790.F583 S67 2010Publication Date: 2010
- Free to Rock
Length: 56 min. Rock and roll spread the sound of freedom across the Iron Curtain and throughout Eastern Europe and the USSR, despite Communist attempts to outlaw it and to crush what they perceived as a contamination of their youth. Over the years, thousands of underground bands and millions of young fans who yearned for Western values helped fuel the nonviolent implosion of the Soviet regime. Features interviews and performances.
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk; ML3534.6.S65 F74 2017 DVDPublication Date: 2017
- Genghis Blues
The story of a Paul Pena, a blind American blues musician, and his trek to Tuva to live among its inhabitants and compete in their triennial khoomei (throat singing) contest. He is accompanied by a documentary film team and Tuvinian throat singer Kongar-ol Ondar. Languages: In English and Tuvinian with English subtitles
Call Number: Media Collection ML3680.7.T9 G45 2000Publication Date: 1999
Great Stars of Russian Ballet. Volume 1, Historic performances, 1971-1983 Volume 2, Historic performances, 1955-1991 Volume 3, Historic performances, 1972-1992 Volume 4. Historic performances, 1968-1992
Call Number: Media Collection GV1787 .G73 2011 DVD- The Harvest of Sorrow: The Memories of Sergei Rachmaninoff
A documentary on the life of Sergei Rachmaninoff, including brief segments from various performances of his instrumental and vocal works. Also includes appearances and personal narratives of the composer's relatives: Rachmaninoff's niece, Sofia Satina, and his grandson, Alexander Rachmaninoff. Originally produced as a documentary for television in 1998.
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk ML410.R3 H38 2009Publication Date: 1998
- Igor Moiseyev and His World of Dance: A Profile of the Great Choreographer Featuring Performances of Ten of His Most Celebrated Works
Length: 78 min.
A profile of the great choreographer featuring performances of ten of his most celebrated works. Originally released as a motion picture in Russia in 1982.
Call Number: Media GV1663 .I367 2008 DVDPublication Date: 2008
- Katia and Volodia
A documentary about Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev, leading dancers with the Bolshoi Ballet, which features extensive performance footage, including excerpts from Romeo & Juliet (both the Prokofiev as well as a production conceived for them by Béjart), Anyuta, Spartacus, etc. They are also seen coaching younger dancers, including Eric Vu An, Assaf Messerer, Elisabeth Maurin, and Richard Wilk.
Call Number: Media Collection GV1785.A1 K38 2008 DVD
- The Leningrad Legend
Length: 71 min.
A behind-the-scenes look at the Kirov Ballet and its determination to develop into a modern entity. Host Makarova visits the Vaganova School and reviews its 250 year history. Includes performance clips by some of the Kirov Ballet's most famous and respected dancers.
Call Number: Media GV1786.L4 L46 1989Publication Date: 1989
- Maiia Plisetskaia / Майя Плисецкая
Prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, of the Bolshoi Ballet, is the subject of this documentary. Contains some rare films of her as a child, and highlights from Swan lake, Sleeping beauty, Spartacus, Romeo and Juliet, Dying swan, Raymonda, Stone flower, Don Quixote, and other ballets.
Call Number: Media Collection GV1785.P55 M3872 2003 DVDPublication Date: 1964
- Makarova Returns
Length: 60 min.
Natalia Makarova returns to the Soviet Union after nearly 20 years of separation. This program includes her triumphant return to the Kirov stage where she began her illustrious career and features excerpts from her performances, and her personal reflections on her career as well as interviews with her family and members of the Kirov.
Call Number: Media GV1785.M26 M35 1992Publication Date: c1989
Medea: A Russian Ballet in One Act
Length: 70 min.
Filmed in the Soviet Union and never seen before by Western audiences, this extraordinary one-act ballet, Medea, freely interprets the classic drama of Euripides. Through music and dance it reveals the ancient story of a powerful woman's revenge upon her faithless husband and the younger rival who has stolen him away from her. Based on the play by Euripides.
Call Number: Media GV1790 .M42 1979Publication Date: 1977- The Nutcracker / Щелкунчик (Shchelkunchik)
Length: 100 min.
Based on Hoffman's fairy tale, "The Nutcracker and the mouse king", the beloved classical ballet takes place one Christmas Eve in a small 19th century Russian town. Marie's brother breaks the doll given to her by her Uncle Drosselmeyer. She falls asleep and has a wonderful dream about the nutcracker's coming to life.
Call Number: Media GV1790 .N8 1987Publication Date: 1987
Red Star: Red Army Chorus & Dance Ensemble
Length: 88 min.
Songs and dances are performed by the Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble.
Call Number: Media M1756 .R43 1997 DVDPublication Date: 1997?- Ruslan and Lyudmila: Magical Opera in 5 Acts
Length: 210 min. Libretto by the composer and Valerian Shirkov, based on the poem by Pushkin.
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk ; M1500.G555 R87 2003Publication Date: 1996
- Russian Opera at the Bolshoi
Length: 112 min.
A visual illustration of the glorious history of the Bolshoi opera, the theatre, its operatic productions and world-renowned star singers.
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk ML1737.8.M6 R87 2004Publication Date: 1999
- Sergei Rachmaninoff Memories
Length: ca. 100 min.
A documentary on the life of Sergei Rachmaninoff, including brief segments from various performances of his instrumental and vocal works.
Call Number: Music Library, Service Desk ML410.R3 S38 1999Publication Date: 1998
Mysteries / Детективы
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- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson / Приключения Шерлока Холмса и доктора Ватсона (Prikli͡uchenii͡a Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona)
Length: 193 min.
The master blackmailer -- The mortal fight -- The hunt for the tiger.
Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1980.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1980
- His Last Bow / Двадцатый век начинается (Dvadtsatyii vek nachinaetsia)
Length: 148 min.
England on the eve of World War I. This time Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are getting involved in a political intrigue. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1986.
Call Number: Media PN1992.8.D48 D83 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1986
- The Hound of the Baskervilles / Собака Баскервилей (Sobaka Baskervileĭ)
Length: 146 min.
One member of a venerable English family of Baskervilles dies in mysterious circumstances. The famous Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson will investigate this case. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1981.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .H68217 2007Publication Date: 1981
- Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson / Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон (Sherlok Kholms i doktor Vatson)
Length: 134 min.
A classic adaptation of short stories about genius detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Doctor Watson. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1979.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1979
- The Sign of Four / Сокровища агры (Sokrovishcha agry)
Length: 145 min.
Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced by Lenfilm Film Studio in 1983.
Call Number: Media PN1992.8.D48 S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1983
Science Fiction & Fantasy / Научная фантастика и Фантастика
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- Aelita : the Queen of Mars / Аэлита
Length: 111 min.
Based on the novel by A. Tolstoy.
Silent movie with English subtitles and music accompaniment.
An engineer living in Moscow dreams of the Queen of Mars and builds a spaceship to take him to her.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .A311415 1999 DVDPublication Date: 1924
- Amphibian Man / Человек-амфибия (Chelovek-amfibiia)
Length: 97 min.
Based on the novel of the same name published in 1928 by Aleksandr Beliaev.
A famous scientist believes that if people were able to live in the ocean, they would be able to resolve all their economical and political problems. He creates the first human amphibian out of his son by transplanting gills onto him. The utopian project turns out tragically.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .C4462 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1961
- Hard to be a God / Трудно быть богом (Trudno bytʹ bogom)
Length: 177 min.
A group of space travelers stumble upon an alien civilization on an earthlike planet with a medieval society. A man is sent to observe it and perhaps help it evolve; instead he finds his own humanist culture slipping from him. Based on the 1964 science fiction novel with the same title, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .T783 2013 DVDPublication Date: 2013
- Ivan Vassilyevich Changes Occupation / Иван Васил’евич меняет профессию (Ivan Vasil’evich meniaet professiiu)
Length: 90 min.
One day young engineer Timofeev discovers that the device invented by him works as a time machine.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.85 .I84 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1973
- Master and Margarita / Мастер и Маргарита (Master i Margarita)
Length: 495 min., miniseries
Set in Moscow during the time of Stalin, several story-lines are intertwined. A writer (the Master) has produced a manuscript of a play about Pontius Pilate. It appears that government agents are intent on suppressing the manuscript. Paranoia sets in as the Master believes that not only the Devil himself is after him, but that his assistant Margarita is conspiring with the forces of evil. Paralleling this is the story of Yeshua and Pontius Pilate. Throughout, the evil Professor of Black Magic and his otherworldly group are manipulating public events and people’s lives. Serial, made for television.
Call Number: Media Collection PG3476.B78 M32 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2006
- Night Watch / Ночной дозор (Nochnoi dozor)
Length: 114 minutes
Based on the novel by Sergei Lukianenko. Living among humans are those who possess various supernatural powers. They are divided into the forces of light and the forces of the dark. Centuries ago both sides signed a treaty to end a war. Now the battle is about to happen again.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .N5448 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2004
- Planet of Storms / Планета бурь (Planeta burʹ)
Length: 78 min.
A team of cosmonauts, consisting of six men, one woman, and one robot, land on Venus. They discover an ancient culture and carnivorous plants.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .P5175 2011 DVDPublication Date: 1961
- Professor Dowell's Testament / Завещание профессора Доуэля (Zaveshchanie professora Douelia)
Length: 91 min.
Based on Aleksandr Beliaev’s novel, Professor Dowell’s head. After sharing the results of his research on immortality with his colleagues, Professor Dowell disappears and his assistant uses their work for criminal purposes.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.85 .Z38 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1984
- Solaris / Солярис (Solaris)
Length: 169 min.
Based on the science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem. Ground control has been receiving strange transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to investigate, he experiences the strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his own consciousness.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.S65 S65 2002 DVDPublication Date: 1972
- Stalker / Сталкер (Stalker)
Length: 163 min.
At the center of an outlawed region called The Zone lies a mystical room altered by unnatural forces. Armed guards are the first in a series of lethal obstructions that prevent outsiders from reaching the place where fantastic powers can fulfill man’s greatest desires. Only the Stalker can lead a scientist and writer through The Zone where an obstacle course of mental and physical barriers tests the limits of their endurance.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .S72 2006 DVDPublication Date: 1979
- Window to Paris / Окно в Париж (Okno v Parizh)
Length: 120 min.
A young musician discovers a magic window which takes him and his friends from his rundown Russian apartment to the streets of Paris.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1993.5.R8 O36 2009 DVDPublication Date: 1994
Television Series / Телесериалы
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- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson / Приключения Шерлока Холмса и доктора Ватсона (Prikli͡uchenii͡a Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona)
Length: 193 min.
The master blackmailer -- The mortal fight -- The hunt for the tiger.
Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1980.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1980
- Doctor Zhivago / Доктор Живаго (Doktor Zhivago)
Length: 848 min.
Based on the novel by Boris Pasternak.
A poet and surgeon, husband and lover finds his life disrupted by war and revolution. It alters the lives of many, including Tonya, the gentle woman he marries and Lara, the woman he cannot forget. (11-episode serial, made for television)
Call Number: Media Collection PN1992.8.F5 .D63 2011Publication Date: 2011
- His Last Bow / Двадцатый век начинается (Dvadtsatyii vek nachinaetsia)
Length: 148 min.
England on the eve of World War I. This time Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are getting involved in a political intrigue. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1986.
Call Number: Media PN1992.8.D48 D83 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1986
- The Hound of the Baskervilles / Собака Баскервилей (Sobaka Baskervileĭ)
Length: 146 min.
One member of a venerable English family of Baskervilles dies in mysterious circumstances. The famous Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson will investigate this case. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1981.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .H68217 2007Publication Date: 1981
- Karamazov Brothers / Братья Карамазовы (Brat'ia Karamazovy)
Length: 440 min.
Television mini-series adaptation of the book by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Call Number: Media PG3326.B7 M67 2009 DVDPublication Date: 2009
- Master and Margarita / Мастер и Маргарита (Master i Margarita)
Length: 495 min., miniseries
Set in Moscow during the time of Stalin, several story-lines are intertwined. A writer (the Master) has produced a manuscript of a play about Pontius Pilate. It appears that government agents are intent on suppressing the manuscript. Paranoia sets in as the Master believes that not only the Devil himself is after him, but that his assistant Margarita is conspiring with the forces of evil. Paralleling this is the story of Yeshua and Pontius Pilate. Throughout, the evil Professor of Black Magic and his otherworldly group are manipulating public events and people’s lives. Serial, made for television.
Call Number: Media Collection PG3476.B78 M32 2006 DVDPublication Date: 2006
- Quiet Flows the Don / Тихий Дон (Tikhiii Don)
Length: 426 min.
Film in three parts, from the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, which depicts the struggle of class interest, social habits and human temperaments through the historic events such as the first World War, the October Revolution, the Civil War, and the first years of Soviet power.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .T553 2005 DVDPublication Date: 1959
- Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson / Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон (Sherlok Kholms i doktor Vatson)
Length: 134 min.
A classic adaptation of short stories about genius detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Doctor Watson. Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced as motion picture in 1979.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1979
- The Sign of Four / Сокровища агры (Sokrovishcha agry)
Length: 145 min.
Based on the works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Originally produced by Lenfilm Film Studio in 1983.
Call Number: Media PN1992.8.D48 S54 2007 DVDPublication Date: 1983
- War and Peace / Война и мир (Voina i mir)
Length: 401 min.
Based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy. Epic portrayal of Tolstoy’s novel of Russia during the Napoleonic invasion at the turn of the 19th century.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.V65 V65 2007 DVDPublication Date: 2007
War Movies / Боевики
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- 9th Company / 9 Рота (9 Rota)
Length: 130 minutes
This film depicts a year in the shared lives of a group of young soldiers drafted to serve in Afghanistan during the final year of the war. It is based on a real-life battle that took place 7-8 January 1988 on Hill 3234 during the last large-scale Soviet military operation Magistral, in which the 9th Company was pinned down under heavy fire, and managed to stop twelve attacks by 200-400 Muhjahideen.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .A1217 2005Publication Date: 2005
- 72 Meters / 72 метра (72 metra)
Length: 116 min.
The film begins in the 1980s Soviet Union. Two best friends serving at the Black Sea Navy Base in Sevastopol fall in love with the same beautiful girl. During routine training a disturbed WWII mine blasts the sub 72 meters below sea level. Then ensues a nerve-racking struggle for survival.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1993.5.R8 S46 2004 DVDPublication Date: 2004
- Battleship Potemkin / Броненосец "Потемкин" (Bronenosets “Potemkin”)
Length: 69 minutes, silent film
Director Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned by the Soviet government to make a movie commemorating the failed uprising of 1905, a mere 20 years after the actual incident. Eisenstein duly hails as heroes the people whose actions were regarded as traitorous in 1905. The film remains remarkable for the way it builds tension over a brisk 69 minutes, and in the right setting with the right audience, can still reveal its inflammatory power.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.75 .B37 2007Publication Date: 1925
- Come and See / Иди и смотри (Idi i smotri)
Length: 145 min.
Based on "The story of Khatyn" by Ales Adamovich.
The horrific and harrowing experiences of a young boy, Florya, who comes of age during the brutal German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.F67 I25 2000 DVDPublication Date: 1985
- The Cranes are Flying / Летят журавли (Letiat zhuravli)
Length: 94 min.
Based on the play with the same title by Victor Rozov.
When Veronica’s lover, Boris, goes to war, she moves in with Boris’ family. His cousin seduces her and out of guilt she marrys him. Unhappy in her marriage and still in love with Boris she leaves her husband to wait for Boris to return. Later she learns Boris has been killed in the war.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1995.9.F67 L485 2002 DVDPublication Date: 1957
- The Cuckoo / Кукушка (Kukushka)
Length: 103 min.
In a land torn apart by war, two men on opposite sides are about to find out they have one thing in common. Wounded and emotionally tortured, they are taken in by Anni, a young war widow. None of them understands the person’s languages, but it doesn’t seem to matter. After a hard day at work on Anni’s farm, who needs words.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .C83 2003Publication Date: 2002
- Doctor Zhivago / Доктор Живаго (Doktor Zhivago)
Length: 848 min.
Based on the novel by Boris Pasternak.
A poet and surgeon, husband and lover finds his life disrupted by war and revolution. It alters the lives of many, including Tonya, the gentle woman he marries and Lara, the woman he cannot forget. (11-episode serial, made for television)
Call Number: Media Collection PN1992.8.F5 .D63 2011Publication Date: 2011
- The Edge / Край (Krai)
Length: 117 min.
The action takes place shortly after the end of the Second World War in the Siberian hinterland, among Russians and Germans with damaged personal stories and a strange transformation: the victors seem to be crawling into the skins of the defeated, and vice versa. Ignat, is the embodiment of the larger-than-life image of the Soviet victorious warrior who, in fact, proves to be shell-shocked, sick and broken, although not completely destroyed.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .K723 2010 DVDPublication Date: 2010
- Furious / Легенда о Коловрате / Legenda o Kolovrate
Length: 118 min.
A story of a legendary battle, where seventeen fearless warriors defend their land against an army of thousands of well-trained soldiers.
Call Number: Media PN1997.2 .F8675 2018 DVDPublication Date: 2017
- In the Land of Blood and Honey
Length: 126 min.
In the midst of 1990s war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina and ethnic cleansing, Serbian soldier Danijel protects his lover Ajla, a Muslim artist, who is now captive in the camp he oversees.
Call Number: Media Collection DR1660 .I68 2012 DVDPublication Date: 2011
- Our Own / Свой (Svoi)
Length: 111 min.
During World War II, three prisoners escape from German detention and flee to a small village where they hope to take refuge. One of the men has been collaborating with the Germans, and must soon face a dire choice. Nothing is certain, no one is safe.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.2 .O97 2008 DVDPublication Date: 2004
- Prisoner of the Mountains / Кавказский пленник (Kavkazskii plennik)
Length: 1 hr. 39 min.
A Russian army patrol is ambushed by Caucasian rebels and two survivors are taken prisoner by a local patriarch who is hoping to barter them for the release of his captured son. A bond of understanding develops between the soldiers and their captors, but it is broken when plans for their release go awry and a chain of violence and retaliation is precipitated.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997 .K38 2003 DVDPublication Date: 1996
- The Red and the White / Csillagosok Katonák
Length: 90 min.
This film about the absurdity and arbitrariness of war is set in Central Russia during the Civil War of 1918. It details the battles between the Red soldiers of Russia, aided by Hungarian Communists, and the counter-revolutionary Whites in the hills along the Volga River. Banned in Russian for many years. In Hungarian and Russian with English subtitles.
Call Number: Media PN1997 .C8868 2001Publication Date: 1968
- Tangerines
Length: 87 min.
The story of awakening humanity in the midst of violence. An older Estonian man cares for two wounded soldiers from opposite sides of the 1990s-era war in Georgia. In Estonian, Russian & Georgian; English subtitles.
Call Number: Media PN1995.9 D667 T36 2014 DVDPublication Date: 2014
- War and Peace / Война и мир (Voina i mir)
Length: 401 min.
Based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy. Epic portrayal of Tolstoy’s novel of Russia during the Napoleonic invasion at the turn of the 19th century.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.V65 V65 2007 DVDPublication Date: 2007
- White Sun of the Desert / Белое солнце пустыни (Beloe solntse pustyni)
Length: 80 min.
A recently discharged soldier makes his way across the desert, seeking only to get to his native village. He happens to be in the area usually occupied by a bandit and his gang. The bandit has left, abandoning all the women connected with the gang, and it falls to the soldier to help them get to safety.
Call Number: Media Collection PN1997.B3664 2003 DVDPublication Date: 1969
Note
These lists include feature films, mini-series, documentaries, and animation related to Russia, the Slavic world, and the former Soviet Union that are held by the UCSB Library.
All videos are on DVD and can be checked out. They are located in Media Collection on the 2nd floor, Ocean Side unless another location is listed.
Unless noted, the films listed are in Russian and have English subtitles available.
The films are listed by their English titles, which do not always translate exactly from the Russian. To find a film by the Russian title, go to the "Slavic-related Films (all)" page and use the "find in page" feature of your browser.