Russia
The White Crow boasts an excellent lead performance from Oleg Ivenko, but the central character remains cold and distant throughout.
This is a preview of four films that will play during Russian Film Week in New York 2018, which kicks off Saturday, December 8 at the SVA Theater and runs through December 14.
Our New President lets the Russian news about Trump tell its own story, but a bit more structure would have made it clearer and stronger.
Despite a strong beginning and strong performances, Siberia is ultimately a confounding mess of genres and tone.
The Color of Pomegranates offers an experience of careful, questioning celebration that combines appreciation of artistic beauty with cognizance of worldly suffering.
A Gentle Creature is a divisive film, too exaggerated to be a realistic condemnation of the corrupt bureaucracy it seeks to lampoon.
Red Sparrow is solidly engaging, a blistering and intense film with Jennifer Lawrence’s skill and Francis Lawrence’s well-crafted atmosphere.
Featuring one of the coldest mother-child relationships of the year, the harrowing but heavy handed Loveless truly lives up to its title.
Russian sports documentary Make them Believe brilliantly uses the lofty dreams of a college wrestler to examine how we chase our goals.
Icarus is a somewhat messy if also interesting look at the doping practices in Russian sports, with a director who gets in over his head.
There isn’t a single original narrative element in this inspirational drama- but the insight into post-WWII Estonian life is fascinating.
We had a chance to talk with Johnny O’Reilly, director of the upcoming drama Moscow Never Sleeps, a film that’s very politically relevant.
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker is ripe with philosophical connotations; here, we discuss some of the film’s more prominent ideas.
The Student is an effective political drama, which satirizes the rough intensity of Russia’s draconian laws in the context of a school.
The next in our Sculptures in Time series about Andrei Tarkovsky’s films is The Mirror, a film very autobiographical and surreal in nature.