Vitaly Mansky

Russian Federation, December 31, 1999. After President Boris Yeltsin's unexpected resignation, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin becomes acting president of the country. From that day and for a year, Vitaly Mansky's camera documented Putin's rise to power. The story of a privileged witness. The harsh explanation of the reason why politics is the art of possibility of achieving the best with the support of many, but also of giving the worst in return.

Over the course of one year, this film follows the life of an ordinary Pyongyang family whose daughter was chosen to take part in Day of the Shining Star (Kim Jong-il's birthday) celebration. While North Korean government wanted a propaganda film, the director kept on filming between the scripted scenes. The ritualized explosions of color and joy contrast sharply with pale everyday reality, which is not particularly terrible, but rather quite surreal.

On February 24, 2022, Yevhen, together with his friends, volunteered to join the first aid squad on the front line. They provided life-saving support and evacuation of the wounded. This film reveals the experiences of these young men for six months full of drama, despair, fear, hatred, bitterness, love, and, most importantly, faith in victory.

A chronicle project about children born on the eve of 2000. 12 episodes of 44 minutes. "In 1999, the world was preparing for the new millennium. So, to the change of epochs, generations. Many considered the change of three nines to three zeros a radical scrapping of the times. It was then, on the scrap, that the foundation of our television project was laid," says Vitaly Mansky. - Then, in 1999, we chose almost at random several dozen women living in Russia at that time and at that time preparing to become mothers. Then everyone was eager to find out what their life would be like in the new millennium, how the history of their country, city, and, of course, their families, their future children would develop. Children who today, in 2006, became the heroes of our television chronicle of the new time... "

"Open up, the Police" is the first Russian documentary series about the police. This is a cycle of 26 films about the "harsh working days" of real policemen, employees of the Moscow Department of Internal Affairs "Airport". They perform operational and investigative actions, which are immediately removed by the film group. Among the heroes are a district inspector, an operational officer, an investigator, an inspector for minors and the head of the Department of Internal Affairs. Each episode is dedicated to one crime. The viewer sees with his own eyes how operas work - starting from a call to the police station, ending with the detention of a criminal and his interrogations. The Laurels Award nominees were three series - "Trunk", "Step from the roof", "Snow was falling Quietly".

In 1991, the Communist Empire of the USSR was destroyed. And one of the main symbols of Soviet power — Lenin's Mausoleum and Lenin's Body itself were left without an owner. The film tells about Lenin's body, its contents, its protection and different opinions about the future of this body — to sell, to revive ..., to bury. "Lenin's Body" is a film about a society that survived the collapse of the Empire.

An immersion into the intimacy of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR. The architect of perestroika and glasnost, who was praised in the West but reviled in his own country, still combative despite his advanced age, loneliness and illness, offers his personal and political testament.

Three young women, who each have a sought-after commodity - their virginity. Kristina, Karina and Katya each try to make their way in a world ruled by fame, popularity and money.

"We propose to look at the history and the present day of the Kremlin through the eyes of people who have been serving the Kremlin for years... The film consists of five episodes. The first is the preparation of the Kremlin for the New Year, the second is dedicated to the Kremlin as a presidential residence, then - the Arsenal and military history, the fourth - symbols, the fifth - the Kremlin as a museum.

The collective life of the generation born as Jurij Gagarin became the first man in space. Vitaly Mansky has woven together a fictional biography – taken from over 5.000 hours of film material, and 20.000 still pictures made for home use. A moving document of the fictional, but nonetheless true life of the generation who grew up in this time of huge change and upheaval.

Refugees from the Caucasian republics, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Russians, meet on the shore of the Black Sea: they work as shop keepers, life guards, karaoke singers, or just enjoy their holidays. It all happens at a place called Broadway, which is no-where to be found on a map, not even the most detailed ones. The temporary inhabitants of Broadway construct a whole world en miniature, consisting of small carts, tents or booths parked in close, haphazard rows. The scenery, which is put up for a few weeks during the summer, bubbles with life – and in no way corresponds with ordinary daily life in Russia.

Today, a series of hockey matches in 1972 between the national teams of Canada and the USSR is remembered only with the prefix super. They call it a milestone in the history of the development of world hockey, and not only hockey. The meeting of Soviet hockey players with Canadian professionals has become the main topic of world news. One Canadian journalist promised to eat the newspaper in which it is printed if the Russians win. The Russians won. And the journalist Dick Beddoes had to fulfill his promise and eat a report in the newspaper with borscht. What happened then, 30 years ago in the USSR, Canada, how the games were held in Canada and Moscow, the intensity of the political confrontation around hockey, life before and after the super series - about all this in five episodes.

A documentary film about the life and early death of Russian singer and songwriter Aleksandr Bashlachev through the eyes of his friends, family members and other representatives of rock music scene.

Vitaly Mansky’s intimate and insightful new documentary finds him crisscrossing Ukraine in the wake of the Maidan uprising, which has left his relatives scattered on both sides of a highly charged and dizzyingly complex political situation.

While Ukraine is fighting, how does it affect the rear? For a year and a half, Vitaly Mansky has portrayed his hometown of Lviv, where everyone’s existence is shaped by the Russian missiles’ flight time to their targets.

From Rock protest to Rock conjuncture... Perestroika not only opened the way for various cultural phenomena that had previously been in the underground, but also gave rise to a wave of opportunistic product that uses the aesthetics of underground art. A film about the production of the rock opera "Dogs" by the theater of a young spectator.

The hero of the film, Mark, the last of the old Jewish family living in Russia and then in the USSR, emigrates to his historical homeland in the early 90s. Under a formal pretext, before leaving, Mark literally comes to the small town where his childhood was spent for one day.

The story is about a family that lives in a ghost town. 15 years ago, there was a job and a happy life here. After the closure of the mine, there were only old barracks, mountains of recycled land and unnecessary people who had lost the meaning of life. Is it possible to survive in such conditions and not sink even lower, when all moral boundaries are erased? Are these people's hopes for happiness destroyed? And is there a place for a holiday, a dream, or love in a hopeless reality? At the festival "Texture" in Perm, the tape was awarded the main prize.

Director Vitaly Manskiy sets off on the trail of the Trans-Siberian gas pipeline to find out what it’s like for ordinary people living in its vicinity. This visually refined road movie, eloquently illustrating the absurd banality of modern Russia, is also an unsettling portrait of a gas line on which most of Europe is reliant.

The history of the Greeks living in Kazakhstan and never having been in their historical homeland ... After the great Stalinist migration of peoples, the Soviet Greeks found themselves in the Kazakh steppes. The heroes of the film are the Greeks of the city of Shymkent (Shymkent), one is the director of a puppet theater, the other is the director of the house of culture. Soviet Greeks in a foreign homeland still remember their own.