Mezhrabpomfilm

From his early silent works, the great Russian film director, Herr Yakov Protazanov, made literary adaptations from equally great Russian writers, as is the case with "Chiny I Lyudi" ( Ranks And People ) (1929) in which three short stories by Chekhov, "Anna On The Neck", "Death Of A Petty Official" and "Chameleon" were assembled for the silent screen.

The priests, stock market officials, and police conspire to squeeze income out of pilgrims come to see relics of a Christ like figure. A pair of con men try to pass of a resurrected saint.

A group of Ukrainian women are forced to work in the mine under the supervision of cruel enemy soldiers. When the soldiers are forced to retreat and decide to blow up the mine, the women organize a guerrilla action to stop them.

A 1925 Soviet comedy sponsored by the Soviet Finance Ministry, with a plot promoting the new economy. A small-town tailor, Petya Petelkin (Ilyinsky), bought a lottery ticket and handed it to his landlord, widow Shirinkina (Deykun) who wants to marry him. Petya is a hard-working tailor trying to start his own business. He is also in love with Katya (Maretskaya), whom he wants to marry. He has to survive a cascade of funny situations in the unstable Soviet reality, before his romance with Katya comes to a happy ending.

A story about capitalistic corruption in a small village and the personal struggles of Anka (Vera Marinich) as she is pregnant and abandoned by her lover.

The first Russian talking picture which won a prize at the 1st Venice IFF. The action is set in 1923. The USSR is struggling with hunger and economic ruin. It is a story of homeless teenagers for whom a work commune is set up with the idea of uniting and reforming them.

A young Lyova travels with the hope of ascent from Czarist Russia to New York. Disappointed, he returns to the young Soviet Union and is glad to have found a simple work.

The new power stations are beating like hearts to the pulse of modernisation. At gigantic expense and effort, the Soviet Union is rapidly industrialised. The state plan foresees the construction of forty power-generation centres across the country. However, the people must first be enlightened about the nature and use of electrical current. Horses and tractors, households and industry, nature and the world of work, neon signs and the construction of power stations all depend on this miraculous new source of energy. The famous Soviet director Lev Kuleshov masterfully realises this project with documentary shots, acted scenes, and lots of creative trick sequences.

Educational film about March 8th, about the situation of rural women.

Working with children led Barskaya to create superb direct sound and an inspired style of shooting. Don’t look for conventional cinematic syntax here. The film is chaotic in the way that Soviet films still knew how to be, and Langlois couldn’t help but be seduced by its rebellious spirit, its anarchy and love of children, comparable to Vigo’s Zero de conduite. As well as being a film made with and for children, it offers a complex take on Western society. Pre-Nazi Germany is not named as such but is carefully reconstructed, possibly under advice from Karl Radek, and children offer a playful reflection of class struggle – doubly excluded, as proletarians and as minors. “They play in the same way that they live”, one intertitle says. The interaction between their comical games and the yet more ludicrous ones played by adults is developed on several levels.

Directed by Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky.

A squad of rebels attacks a peaceful caravan, and the old guide Sho-Murad and his granddaughter Pery find themselves in captivity of the bandits. Border guards and a sheepdog Dzhulbars repulse prisoners and neutralize enemies.

How a sailor on leave participated in the struggle of the village poor against the kulaks. Lost movie.

Lost film.

The events in the film take place in pre-revolutionary Russia. A riot of workers of a large porcelain factory is taking place. After the burning of one of the shops, Grunya's father dies in the fire. The owner of the factory caused the fire in order to obtain a fine from the workers. Grunya urgers the workers to fight, but is injured, yet she still urges the people not to give up.

Educational film on why corporal punishment is unacceptable in children's upbringing and is a relic of the past.

Staged scenes of life in all strata of the Russian population before the October Revolution. Restoration of the national economy after the Civil War. Construction of new factories: Rostselmash, the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, and the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant. Kuznetskstroy. Creation of new state farms. Training of personnel for the national economy. Elimination of illiteracy among the population in all regions of the country. Development of the rationalization movement among workers. Physical culture and mass sports activities among the population.

A supposedly ordinary woman’s personal triumph and tragedy is explored in Igor Savchenko’s 1936 Sluchainaya Vstrecha (Accidental Meeting). Irina – the best shock worker in a provincial children’s factory – develops a relationship with the newly arrived and charming physical culture instructor named Grisha. Soon we learn that Irina is pregnant. Disappointed and angry on hearing her news, Grisha asks her about what will now happen to all their dreams.

The secret police agent finds that factory director wife is counterrevolutionary but dies from the heart attack. The director reads the diary of an agent and turns his wife to police.

The movie tells about the first years of Nazism. In the center of the plot is a German student graduating from an institute and receiving a diploma with a gold medal for success in science. The same is honored by his Jewish friend Joseph Voltmeyer. During the solemn ceremony, Nazi students provoke a fight, beat Joseph and Ruddy, who stood up for him.