St. Petersburg Documentary Film Studio

These images and sounds are poetic metaphors that transform “Elegy from Russia” into a document that provides a emotional–historical “memory bank” for all.

By means of documentary films, the authors try to explore the deep essence of Stalinism as a phenomenon that was and is based on the historical, psychological and social traditions of Russian society.

This movie is a collection of portraits of residents of Russian countryside. Not a single word. Only long look into the camera. Landscape. Flow of time.

An almanac of three different stories, united by a single New Year's Eve, Christmas theme.

The twenty-six-year-old hero, who previously worked as a parking lot watchman, went into business and could not repay the loan. And he has a wife and children. The current situation forces him to look at the world with different eyes.

The film consists of five separate short stories about different people. A young man who has just returned from the war in Transnistria. The boys who wipe the windows of cars on the streets for tips. A newly minted millionaire who got rich from criminal operations. A French woman who recently came to Russia for permanent residence. A small theater troupe, cheerful and hoping only for themselves.

Denis Lisov was able to defend the right to raise his own children and went to Sweden to pick them up from a foster family and return to his native Khabarovsk.

The poet Roald Mandelstam lived in postwar Leningrad. He was seriously ill from childhood, rarely left his house, and knew his life would be short. His visitors included the composer Isaac Schwartz and a painters that would come to be known as the "Arafiev circle," a group of independent artists working outside of official oversight. After 50 years, a fresco was discovered under the wallpaper in his communal apartment...