Vladimir Kashpur

Fitil is a popular Soviet/Russian television satirical/comedy short film series which ran for about 500 episodes. Some of the episodes were aimed at children, and were called Фитилёк, Fitilyok, Little Fuse. Each issue contained from the few short segments: documentary, fictional and animated ones. Directed by various artists, including Leonid Gaidai who presented his famous trio of Nikulin, Vitsin and Morgunov into the cast. It was called in USSR as "the anecdotes from the Soviet government".

Thirty short stories based on thirty stories by Chekhov.

During World War II, earnest young Russian soldier Alyosha Skvortsov is rewarded with a short leave of absence for performing a heroic deed on the battlefield. Feeling homesick, he decides to visit his mother. Due to his kindhearted nature, however, Alyosha is repeatedly sidetracked by his efforts to help those he encounters, including a lovely girl named Shura. In his tour of a country devastated by war, he struggles to keep hope alive.

The Russian Empire, the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, the era of Peter I's reforms. At the center of events are Captain Silvestr Ievlev, Lieutenant of the Customs Troops Afanasy Krykov, and Helmsman Ivan Ryabov. All three are very close to the emperor, who entrusts them with commanding the resistance against the Swedish fleet during the defense of Arkhangelsk. Each of the trio plays an important role in the defense of Arkhangelsk and the capture of the Swedish fleet.

Each of the short stories is based on either one or several stories by a wonderful Russian writer. The heroes are ordinary people “of the people”, contemporaries of Shukshin, all of whose life’s ups and downs are inextricably linked with their country - the Soviet Union of the 60s-70s. The main thing that unites both the works themselves and the films made is a whole gallery of the brightest images and characters, a story about such different destinies and differently meaningful lives, a story in the center of which is invariably Man, with his love, quests, weaknesses and victories.

The film is set in the 1930s in the USSR. The film tells about one day of the construction of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. The heroes of the film are simple construction workers who are burning at work. Upon learning that their colleagues in Kharkov have set a record, they mobilize to break it. The entire construction site was engulfed in immense socialist competition. The teams are ready to complete the work on time at any cost. A Moscow journalist who has come to cover the scale of the great construction project is looking for the hero of his report...

No description available.

A story of a several days of intense fighting on the Eastern Front during one of the Soviet offensives in WWII.

This five part epic war drama gives a dramatized detailed account of Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany during world war two. Each of the five parts represents a separate major eastern front campaign.

In 1953, the year Stalin died, many prisoners (some political, but mostly common criminals) were released from the Soviet Gulags. This is the story of a remote settlement which was under attack by a bunch of these recently-released blood-thirsty thugs in the summer of 1953, and the townspeople, along with a two political prisoners, who try to stop them.

No description available.

During the Gorbachev years, Platon Makovski and his four buddies are university students who jump on the private capitalism movement. Fast-forward 20 years, Platon finds himself the richest man in Russia, having sacrificed his friends to get to the top. But with this cynical rise, comes a brutal fall.

The years of the tsar’s adolescence and youth were permeated with deadly danger coming from some of the Boyars, the rebellious Streltsy and Tsarevna Sophia who aspired for power. But already at that early time Peter demonstrates a profound, bright intellect, a strong will and the sense of purpose, which help him disarm both his open and secret enemies.

Based on the novel by Charles de Coster "The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak, and their Adventures Heroical, Joyous and Glorious in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere." First part: "The Ashes of Claes". XVI century. The freedom-loving and cheerful people of the Netherlands under the rule of the Spanish king: persecution, torture, bonfires of the Inquisition, encouraging scammers. The fearless Thyl Uhlenshpiegel and his faithful girlfriend Nele have to go through many trials. Second part: "Viva Beggars!". The people of the Netherlands, tormented by cruel royal decrees, taxes, heresy, torture and executions, began a war of liberation against Spanish rule. Many feats will be performed by the national hero Tilbert (Thyl) Ulenspiegel and his friend Lamme Gudzak before peace returns to their homeland.

A rare astronomical phenomenon — the parade of planets — has a strange effect on several men. The heroes of the film — an astrophysicist, locksmith, salesman, architect, loader, trolley bus driver — are called up for military training, which ends ahead of time. There is a strange pause in their life — no one knows where they are, no one is waiting for them, and they themselves can not rush anywhere. This short respite in a hasty and busy life gives the heroes the opportunity to experience strong and very important feelings for them.

The film consists of two parts: “Insomnia” and “Departure”. We shall meet Lev Tolstoy in the final years of his life at Yasnaya Polyana. We shall see him surrounded by his family, friends, acquaintances and absolute strangers who were coming to the great man and artist from all over the world. We shall hear “the voice of his thoughts”. In his sleepless nights, we shall follow his memory of the happy youthful years and the crucial, hard ones. We shall witness Tolstoy’s tragic departure from Yasnaya Polyana and his death at an obscure little station of Astapovo.

The Master is a talented writer in Moscow working on a manuscript about Jesus and Pontius Pilate. The Moscow authorities are harassing Master by surveillance and intimidation. His assistant and muse, Margarita, tries to help the Master through the supernatural powers she got from the devil, Woland, who is visiting Moscow.

A "Hitlerjugend" kind of story, set in the Soviet Union during the Second World War, based on a fictitious story from the eponymous book by Vladimir Kunin.

The beautiful Tanya returns to her small mining town, after supposedly working as a model in Moscow. She decides to marry her shy school sweetheart Mishka, who now works in the mine. The miners finally receive some pay, but Mishka still ends up with no money to buy his bride a gift, so he seeks the help of his perpetually drunk buddy Garkusha. Mishka's poor working-class family all help to put on a fine wedding with copious amounts of vodka, even though they are suspicious of Tanya's occupation in Moscow, and of her connection with her Mafia ex-boyfriend Borodin.

The movie takes us back to the times of the Civil War, when the young Soviet power was defended by the first heroes of this terrible internecine war. Red commanders Semyon Budyonny and Kliment Voroshilov managed to gather an entire army of "red cavalrymen" - thus began the history of the campaigns "through valleys and up hills" of the legendary First Cavalry Army.