Anna Katchko

A nostalgic look at the birth and death of arthouse film distribution in Russia in the early 2000s. The story of the company Cinema Without Borders and its two founders, Sam Klebanov and Anton Mazurov.

Since early childhood Peter has been obsessed with the world of puppets, but his greater obsession is with a real girl, Lisa. He crafts his perfect woman out of her. But Lisa isn't a docile marionette. She's a living human being and she rebels against her creator. Based on the critically-acclaimed, brilliant and poignant novel by one of the best contemporary Russian writers, Dina Rubina, "Petrushka Syndrome" is a multidimensional metaphor, where a sense of duality pervades everything. People and dolls, life and art, the Creator and the creation depend on one another. And where does one draw the line between them?

Top astrophysicist Sasha Greenberg has spent the past 17 years working in the United States. An invitation to speak at a Congress on Cosmology in his native Moscow brings him home for the first time to confront colleagues, and unanswered personal questions. As Russia undergoes perestroika, public and private lives are radically re-assessed and Sasha sees the social and sexual upheavals as a crisis

“Whatever falls from heaven, you may keep.” So goes the unwritten law of the Kazakh steppes. A law avidly adhered to by the inhabitants of a small village, who collect the space debris that falls downrange from the nearby Baikonur space station. The last two youthful members of the village are the radio operator Iskander, known as Gagarin, and the spirited Nazira. While Nazira finds it increasing difficult to conceal her love for Iskander by means of her unconventional behaviour, Iskander is evidently not only crazy about Baikonur and the vastness of outer space, but also deeply smitten with the beautiful French astronaut Julie Mahé, whose journey to the stars he wistfully follows on television.

A gang of crooks robbing cash collectors, run into a police surveillance team and the inadequate police response results in a gunfight. A TV crew on assignment in the area happens to capture this humiliation on camera, and this example of police incompetence is soon the lead story in every news bulletin. Public confidence in law and order now suffers irreparable harm. The head of the Moscow force welcomes a public search-and-destroy operation against these thugs, the brainchild of Katya, his PR director. She proposes that the capture of this dangerous gang be transformed into a live TV show of a kind never seen before. At this point she cannot know that the gang leader's life-and-death struggle with the police is destined to lead to a media duel. Besieged in a huge apartment block, the crooks hold hostage a father and his son and daughter. A massive special forces rescue operation is mounted but fails miserably.

A universal story about the freedom of the human spirit and the struggle against slavery and despotism, about love, loss and betrayal. It is seen through the eyes of simple Kazakh kids and teenagers.

Medea is an intelligent, highly educated woman who gives up on her dreams when she falls for rich businessman Alexei. When the pair have two children, she patiently waits for him to divorce his wife, and as he decides to emigrate from Russia to Israel, she meekly follows him. But when he shuns her for having committed a crime to protect him, her blind love turns into burning rage.

During a medical examination, 13-year-old Aslan is humiliated in front of a load of his fellow pupils. The incident unleashes his latent personality disorder. Plagued by self-doubt, he strives for cleanliness and perfection and is obsessed with trying to control everything around him. His compulsion draws Aslan, who lives with his grandmother in a village in Kazakhstan, into increasingly difficult situations. He abhors the way most of his fellow pupils are held in the sway of a criminal scheme, in which Bolat, one of Aslan’s tormentors, is also involved. Bolat blackmails the younger children into paying him protection money; he has nothing but contempt for ostracised Aslan.

We are in the year 2001, a temporary ceasefire brings a much-needed break to a small war-torn village in Northern Nepal, bringing much joy among the residents. Prakash and Kiran, two young close friends, are also starting to feel the change in the air. Though they are divided by caste and social creed, they remain inseparable, and start raising a hen given to Prakash by his sister, with hopes to save money by selling her eggs. However, the hen goes missing. To find it, they embark on a journey, innocently unaware of the tyranny brought by the fragile ceasefire.

An unprecedented terrorist attack takes place in a peaceful café in the center of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, on a nice Saturday afternoon. The terrorists use religion to divide and to kill people, while the surviving hostages, all of them also Muslims, try to defend their own humanistic values. The film unravels the clashes and contradictions of religion, ideology, and civilizations through a terror drama shot in a single take.

For her job as an influencer, she wears orange and a broad smile. The “Happiness” brand is her doctrine, but her home is a dark place where brute force has ruled for years. This film shows us what it costs to escape the trap of misogyny.

In Almaty, a cash-strapped couple hatch a plan to solve their money troubles, but soon become embroiled in a toxic web of social media, violent criminality and spiralling greed.

A story of a mature man who comes back home from the city to take care of his dying mother. The mother’s passing, together with a meeting with his brother and a woman he loves, makes him reflect on the life he’s had and choices he’s made along the way. And then, just before her death, the mother tells Anatolii about a treasure she has buried inside the shed…

Following an old nomadic tradition 'Bauryna Salu', a boy Yersultan, was given after his birth to be raised by his grandmother. He grew up with resentment and disconnection from his parents. When he turns twelve, his grandmother dies and he has to move back with his family which he barely knows. Yersultan's coming of age process coincides with an unbearable transformation and an attempt to restore the relationship between him and his parents, especially his father.

The character of the end 80-s, fascinated by music, socially and nationally mixed up in a Kazakh neighborhood. Among them is a Kazakh teenager who unexpectedly falls in love with a girl of Russian-Polish roots. The age and national differences become an almost insurmountable obstacle for the main character, manifested through his friend who is a rival as well as a friend, a Russian guy - the leader of the courtyard band.

In a remote village on the Kazakh steppe, Mariam lives with her husband and four young children in a home without light or water. One winter day, her husband disappears. Without a body, he cannot be declared dead and Mariam is unable to receive state financial support. A very reserved person who buries her emotions, she must face survival of her family on her own in the harsh, rural winter. Inspired by actual events in Mariam's life, who portrays herself in a film that blurs documentary and drama as it paints her life's mundane details.