Yevhen Holubenko

Blonde Lilia and brunette Violetta are fascinated by horse racing, and the young racers are more than a little attracted to them, too. However, the worlds of sporting and romance don't always coexist peacefully as the two girls learn the hard way through a series of touching, surreal, and sometimes heartbreaking encounters. One of the most beautifully photographed Russian films in recent years, this acclaimed modern classic was hailed at numerous film festivals including the Berlin Film Festival and Russia's Kinotavr Festival, where it won the Jury and Critics Prizes. Amazon

In this affectionate, leisurely paced comedy, an Odesa policeman is out walking his beat when he discovers an adorable infant abandoned in a cabbage patch. He does his duty and takes the baby to an orphanage, but later he and his wife, who have an unusually affectionate and cozy relationship, decide to try and adopt the little one. What they must go through to accomplish that goal is anything but straightforward.

A man goes to see his former schoolmate working at a boiler house and persuades him to burn in the furnace the corpse of his communal flat neighbor whom he has just murdered after a quarrel. An orphaned girl gets a job in the archives of the maternity home to find out the identity of her mother who abandoned her years earlier. She finds her, befriends her and takes the first opportunity to throw her into the sea. An old intellectual tries to explain to the neighbor’s five-year-old daughter “all the abomination of her lumpen existence”. The girl feeling hurt for her mother decides to poison the old man with arsenic.

A young piano tuner befriends two rich old-ladies, and plots, with the help of his girlfriend, to betray their trust and steal from them.

In the old days it was called hypochrondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it's termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai, a teacher of epicly indifferent pupils, has got it, and it's not much fun.

The film is based on A. P. Chekhov’s play “Tatiana Repina” and short story “Difficult People”. At his wedding, the groom is horrified to see among the church crowd his former mistress who had recently committed suicide.

This celebrated director's "exquisite cruelty" appears front and center when the death of a stage actor turns a theatrical drama into a real one. Two in One's two parts, "Stagehands" and "Woman of a Lifetime," celebrate the psychological richness that lurks just beneath the surface of banal reality - if murderous stagehands, lascivious fathers and vengeful daughters can be described as banal.

In VGIK, she was a student of the workshop of Sergei Gerasimov and Tamara Makarova, and watched Godard's "Last Breath" and thought, nothing more is needed. Everything is already there. But, in the end, without her, without her 22 films, the history of world cinema would be incomplete. In our country, her name has become one of the undisputed geniuses-Tarkovsky, Parajanov, Herman, Sokurov. The brilliant Kira Muratova looks at a person with irony, as if from a distance and from above, as if at a funny puppet theater, but her gaze is full of sympathy. It divides artists into two categories: preachers and gamblers. Of course, he considers himself one of the latter. Chance is her muse. Improvisation is a feature of the method. And what is life but improvisation? In contrast to Rene Clair with his phrase " my film is ready. It remains only to remove it", goes to the set, opening up to life, the game of chance.

The movie examines the lives of the not-so-fortunate dregs of society through absurdist comedy. The unfortunates of the title are mentally challenged people, some of whom could be termed insane - or merely inane.

A woman is paid a surprise visit by her long-forgotten classmate, who needs her advice: should he choose a wife or a lover? An outrageously burlesque mise-en-scène is repeated many times but each time in a different place and performed by new actors. Why?

A strange man intervenes between ex-spouses on a matter directly related to a large sum of money one of them had secured after selling a piece of property.

Two young orphan siblings travel to Moscow in search of their missing father. Scared of being separated and sent to orphanages, they hope to reunite with the last link of their shattered family.

Two friends from Odesa try to compose a video message to their pals, emigrants to the United States. One of them rents his apartment to a tricky girl who invents various excuses not to pay the rent. An exceptional story about people on the verge of despair who nonetheless manage to enjoy life, even if these joys are beyond good and evil.

One day, Grigori appears at the hospital in a state of excitement and informs her that his mother has died. Margarita, who also knew this friendly old lady, is saddened at the news. On the other hand, the announcement makes her hopeful that things might just work out for her and Grigori after all.