Hard Happiness

Shortly before the outbreak of WWI, a peasant from rural Russia arrives in St. Petersburg to find work.

Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin's Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to do. And he does it well.

A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.

Contemporary Russia. After he flubs a penalty kick, a humiliated national soccer player quits the game. He flees to a small town, where he decides to coach their local team.

An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.

The story of a man whose life was ruthlessly crippled by World War II. His wife and daughters were killed during the bombing of his village, he spent some time as a prisoner, and his only son was killed in action only a few days before the victory...

Drama telling the story of Blue, a young man of Jamaican descent living in Brixton in 1980, as he hangs out with his friends, fronts a dub sound system, loses his job, struggles with family problems and has his friendships tested by racism.

A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.

On a summer day in late 19th century Russia, a group of bourgeois friends and acquaintances gather at a dilapidated country estate.

A young girl lives in the Outer Hebrides in a small village in the years just before WWI. Isolated and hard by the shore, her life takes a dramatic change when a terrible tragedy befalls her.

Living in rural Texas is a dysfunctional family: an abusive dad, a Vietnam vet with a war wound that's left him impotent; a compliant wife and a son of about 20, two small sons who look a lot like their brother. The dad harbors a secret, and he goes to murderous lengths to keep it hidden. The young man, Jimmy, who has suspicions, but little comes out until a Yankee woman comes to town.

A star athlete and top student, Luce's idealized image is challenged by one of his teachers when his unsettling views on political violence come to light, putting a strain on family bonds while igniting intense debates on race and identity.

A man struggles with the tragic memories of his past to make sense of his present, but soon realizes that time isn't the enemy he thinks it is.

Ivan Demarin, a young officer of Peter the First’s new guards, follows the Tsar’s order and goes to the frontier town of Tobolsk, deep in the Siberian forest. There Ivan falls in love for the first time and he and his regiment happen to be involved in conspiracy of local princes who hunt for gold in the town of Yarkand. His fort is surrounded by hordes of wild Dzungars and there is no one to call for help…

Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.

Louis Menkins is five weeks away from being released after 26 years in prison. He is faced with the decision to put his own release at risk in order to protect a young man named Beecher from growing gang controversies.

A young Kyrgyz immigrant tries to eke out a living in Moscow after abandoning her newborn and fleeing the hospital.

A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team

A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.

When a young soldier, newly returned from war, gets caught up in a drug bust, he is recruited by the authorities to go undercover in a notoriously dangerous prison in order to figure out what is really going on.