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Russian Film Festival · 2009

Russian Film Festival 2009

Features

Programme

10 films · 5 reviews

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Anna Karenina

Review preview for Anna Karenina

No detail is too much trouble, nothing is out of place, discordant or jarring; it is a film of seamless beauty.

Caro Ness · 4 out of 5
Tolstoy's tale of a woman torn between her lover and her marriage.

(Country: Russia; Year: 2009; Director: Sergei Soloviev; Writer: Sergei Soloviev, based on the story by Leo Tolstoy; Stars: Tatyana Drubich, Oleg Yankovskiy, Yaroslav Boyko, Aleksandr Abdulov, Mariya Anikanova, Yekaterina Vasilyeva, Sergey Garmash, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Eduard Martsevich, Lyudmila Savelyeva)

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ASSA-2

Review preview for ASSA-2

A woeful piece of self-indulgence.

Caro Ness · 1 out of 5
Alika languishes in jail. Yet hope may be in sight for her, as a well-known director is touring Russian prisons, hoping to find the perfect woman to play the lead role in a new version of Anna Karenina.

(Country: Russia; Year: 2009; Director: Sergei Soloviev; Writer: Sergei Soloviev; Stars: Tatiana Drubich, Yuri Bashmet, Sergei Shnurov, Anna Solovieva)

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The Event

A family's lives are shattered by the news a man who attempted to murder them five years earlier has just been released from prison.

(Country: Russia; Year: 2009; Director: Andrey Eshpay; Writer: Andrey Eshpay, based on the play by Vladimir Nabokov; Stars: Chulpan Khamatova, Igor Gordin, Sergey Perelyigin, Evgeniya Simonova, Zoya Kaydanskovskaya, Sergey Dreyden)

First Squad (Fâsuto sukuwaddo)

A psychic teen holds the only hope for the Red Army on the Eastern Front in 1942 in this fantastical, historical anime.

(Country: Russia, Japan, Canada; Year: 2009; Director: Yoshiharu Ashino; Writer: Aljosha Klimov, Misha Sprits; Stars: Aleksandr Gruzdev, Artem Kipnis, Liubomiras Lauciavicius, Georgi Martirosyan, Rudolf Pankov, Aleksandr Pashutin, Gennadi Sajfulin, Irina Savina, Theodor Schuler)

Melody For A Street Organ (Melodiya dlya sharmanki)

A step-brother and step-sister whose mother has died, fear being split up so go in search of their fathers.

(Country: Ukraine; Year: 2009; Director: Kira Muratova; Writer: Kira Muratova, Volodymyr Zuyev; Stars: Roma Burlaka, Natalya Buzko, Jean Daniel, Georgi Deliyev, Lena Kostyuk, Renata Litvinova, Nina Ruslanova, Oleg Tabakov)

Paper Soldier (Bumazhnyy Soldat)

Review preview for Paper Soldier

Visually startling and constantly surprising, Paper Soldier is a major work of modern cinema.

Angus Wolfe Murray · 4.5 out of 5
Russian cosmonauts train for the Sputnik launch in a frozen wilderness in Kazakhstan.

(Country: Russia; Year: 2008; Director: Aleksei German Jnr; Writer: Aleksei German Jnr, Vladimir Arkusha; Stars: Merab Ninidze, Chulpan Khamatova, Anastasiya Sheveleva)

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Pete On The Way To Heaven (Petya po doroge v tsarstvie nebesnoe)

Review preview for Pete On The Way To Heaven

the action, though well acted and offering a snapshot of rural Russia in the Fifties, offers little in the way of innovation or even a gripping story.

Amber Wilkinson · 2.5 out of 5
A smalltown boy lives a fantasy life of a cop, indulged by the other residents, but trouble is on the horizon.

(Country: Russia; Year: 2009; Director: Nikolai Dostal; Writer: Mikhail Kurayev; Stars: Egor Pavlov, Konstantin Bykov, Sergey Kharlamo, Artem Kobzev, Aleksandr Korshunov, Vladimir Lyubovsky, Nikolai Machulsky, Roman Madyanov, Uriy Ponomarenko, Yevgeni Redko, Zakhar Ronzhin, Tatyana Shuba, Nikita Tezin, Svetlana Timofeyeva-Letunovskaya, Svetlana Ulybina)

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Russia 88 (Rossiya 88)

Docudrama about Russian neo-Nazis.

(Country: Russia; Year: 2009; Director: Pavel Bardin; Stars: Petr Fedorov, Vera Strokova, Kazbek Kibizov, Mikhail Polyakov, Nikolai Machulsky)

Tale In The Darkness (Skazka pro temnotu)

A chance remark from a teenager prompts a policwoman to change her life.

(Country: Russia; Year: 2009; Director: Nikolay Khomeriki; Writer: Aleksandr Rodionov; Stars: Alisa Khazanova, Boris Kamorzin, Yuri Safarov)

Ward 6 (Palata N°6, Ward No 6)

Review preview for Ward 6

Much more complex than it first appears and fully deserving of its selection as Russia’s foreign language Oscar nominee this year, Ward No 6 persuasively prods at our preconceptions of ‘madness’.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
'Fake' documentary explores how a doctor ended up a patient in his own asylum.

(Country: Russia; Year: 2009; Director: Alexander Gornovsky, Karen Shakhnazarov; Writer: Aleksandr Borodyansky, Karen Shakhnazarov, based on the short story by Anton Chekhov; Stars: Vladimir Ilyin, Aleksei Vertkov, Aleksandr Pankratov-Chyorny, Yevgeni Stychkin, Viktor Solovyov, Aleksei Zharkov, Stanislov Eventov, Alina Olshanskaya, Anna Sinyakina, Albina Yevtushevskaya) , Official site

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