Outskirts of St. Petersburg. Metro "Udelnaya". A flea market that the locals call "Udelka". People who are beyond poverty and loneliness. Hopes and disappointments, wisdom and recklessness, joy and despair. How does this small state live?

On August 25, 1968, Soviet dissident Victor Fainberg joined seven other USSR citizens in the Red Square Demonstration to protest the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. They were known as the "Magnificent Eight." Fainberg paid for his “five minutes of freedom” on the Red Square with 5 1/2 years of confinement and torture in a Soviet "mental hospital". From the crushing of the Prague Spring (1968) to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (2022), Fainberg’s insider testimony on the price and triumph of resistance to evil takes us on a breathtaking journey into the madness and hopes of contemporary Russia.

Reflection of young studio students from the Youth Theater Studio "Yorik" about life, and understanding what is the main thing in their life, without which they cannot exist, and what is the actual meaning of life.

The reports by civilian victims of the Russian and Belarusian occupation in Ukraine contain descriptions of torture and repression that appear to be systematic in nature. Taking those reports as a basis, a filmmaker from Belarus investigates that systematic procedure on the streets of his Berlin neighbourhood. He also confronts the question of what this war of annihilation has to do with him and what responsibility he himself bears.

The film tells about the fate of the Nobel laureate Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa. For 10 years, the leading physicist worked in England in Rutherford's laboratory, but circumstances have changed. Returning to his homeland, Kapitsa was no longer able to leave the country. In the context of difficult relations with the authorities, Kapitsa created an institute that has become one of the best physical and technical laboratories in the world.

The experimental film is a philosophical reflection on the modern problems of intercultural interaction in the modern world and self-identification of a person in it. Based on documentary footage and staged scenes, the film does not follow established documentary film forms. The plot of the film is the story of a European who came to Varanasi in search of answers to spiritual questions. The general idea of ​​the film lies in the visual meaning of the frames and their variable meanings. The viewer of the film is not offered a one-sided view of a contemporary problem, but he can find his answer by immersing himself in the atmosphere of the film.

Since childhood, Love has dreamed of playing the violin and conducting a symphony orchestra. But my mother wanted Lyuba to study law. Festivals: Festival of student and debut films "Saint Anna" (2019, Russia, Moscow) International Student Festival VGIK (2019, Russia, Moscow) International youth festival of television programs and films "TELEMANIA" (2019, Russia, Moscow) International Christian Film Festival ""Nevsky Blagovest"" (2019, Russia, St. Petersburg"")

For seven years of work in Perm, Teodor Currentzis has become a real symbol of the region and turned the Diaghilev Festival into one of the most high-profile cultural forums in the country. The film is a fixation of the last two weeks of Currentzis' work in the Urals and an observation of how the Russian provinces, contemporary art and the cult of the conductor's personality coexist with each other.

The last week before the end of the summer in a tiny town on the Volga, the last week before friends leave until next year - to colleges, earnings, barracks. In Yuryevets, only Slava and her foster grandmother will remain from the company of 17-19-year-olds, although he is not exactly sure who she is. They say that she really is a stranger to him.

In 2017, Hakob Melkonyan, an Armenian filmmaker, received an extraordinary document: the war diary of his grandfather. Mobilized in 1942 in the Soviet army, Karapet Melkonyan had kept his diary for two years. Moved by the story of this adventure, Hakob decides to follow in his grandfather's footsteps and discover today’s reality in those territories. The War Diary is a road movie through four countries: Armenia, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine. It confronts the history of the Second World War with today's reality in these former Soviet republics. Having become independent after the fall of the USSR, they are now torn apart by numerous deadly conflicts in Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine. The War Diary is a very personal quest, but also sheds light on the geopolitical context of these countries that once fought side by side. Today, however, with the invasion of Ukraine, it has become an essential project.

Festivals

EBS International Documentary Festival EIDF (Seoul, 2023) - Official selection
Kosice Independent Film Festival (Slovakia, 2023) - Official selection
Festival International du Film D'histoire (France, 2023) - Official selection
Greece International Film Festival (Athens, 2023) - Honorable Mention

At the breakout of war, caught in the grip of a siege, the Donbass Opera and Ballet Theatre stubbornly prepares for a show: the Swan Lake. Under the bombs the personnel works without salary, food, heating but does not surrender. In the end the show will be staged and, even if just for one night, the world’s interests’ engine will have to stop, will have to wait, until the show will be over.

A film about children with cancer. And about their moms who stay in the hospital for as long as it takes, some two months, others two years. The oncology center is a home for both children and their parents. Here is a life that for many ends in death.

Masha dreams of becoming an actress and takes part in a new production of an inclusive theater. But stage fright, which causes her to stupor, jeopardizes the troupe's first international tour.

A film about a modern village.

Leonid Leonov is a classic of Soviet literature of the "great style". Zakhar Prilepin is one of the brightest young writers of the new Russia. Prilepin has been engaged in the biography and work of Leonov for many years, in this film he talks about the turning points in the life of Leonid Maksimovich, trying to present all the facets of this personality.

What is said about corruption in the holy books, what should a believer do when faced with corruption, is the sin of a bribe-taker great and is it possible to atone for it? Orthodox priests, a mufti and a bishop of the Lutheran Church frankly and in detail tell the CEO of the anti-corruption organization Transparency International - Russia Ilya Shumanov and the founder of Cyber Fund Marina Guryeva about the attitude towards corruption among the confessions they represent.

A film about the life of the dacha village of the Soviet elite, who settled on the banks of the Moskva River in the 20-30s of the last century. The documentary play "Nikolina Gora" is a kind of continuation of the play by Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard" with real characters, representatives of Russian bohemia in the conditions of modern life. “Dacha, summer residents, it’s so vulgar,” said Ranevskaya in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, resisting the fragmentation of the latter into small plots. But progress is inexorable, and the old “cherry garden” had to be sold and cut down, and another life appears in place of the old dachas and the old way of life.

As a child, Adele left Russia for France with her mother, leaving the rest of the family behind. To shorten the distance, she began filming their conversations. When Adele learns that her cousin Sonya has cancer, the distance becomes insurmountable.

The film is about how old people and children are very similar and, for various reasons, see the world in the same way and believe in miracles. And each of these "children" needs love and attention. With this film, the car wants to evoke in the audience, without direct moralizing, a certain association from life, some kind of sympathy and care for their parents. After all, awakening from an inanimate and emotionless existence is extremely important at the present time.

The film describes the years of war hard times that swept through the Chechen Republic like a hurricane, turning it into a pile of stones, as well as the leader Akhmat-Khadji Kadyrov.