Мне не больно (It doesn’t hurt), 2006
Director: Aleksei Balabanov
Language: Russian
Run time: 100 minutes
Availability: Soyuz video, http://RussianDVD.com

Aleksei Balabanov’s beautifully photographed film puts St. Petersburg on display. Three young interior designers (also apartment squatters) are on the verge of professional success. They find rich clients looking to redo fixer-uppers. But what happens when one of their clients, a fancy lady, apparently loaded, makes a pass at one of the 20-somethings in the company. The surprise development of the relationships among the characters is as beautiful as the Petersburg photography.
- Recommended by Richard Robin, Russian Language Music and Internet Review Editor

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Piter FM.
Vox Video (2006)
Run time: 90 minutes

In this light romantic comedy.... Wait! Light romantic comedy?! From today's Russia?! Yes, they've finally shown that they can get away from the blood, gloom, and doom that dominated post-Soviet movie making. At the same time, Piter FM avoids the other extreme characteristic of lighter Russian fare of the 1990s: frat party humor. So, in this light romantic comedy, Masha works for a dour boss as a deejay at a Petersburg rock station. She's engaged to a straight-arrow boring yuppie. Fate takes a hand when she drops her cell phone on the street and it winds up in the hands of... Well, you can guess the rest. Even though the outcome is predictable, the movie is a ton of fun. The photography of Petersburg is stunning. The NTSC (North American TV) version of the movie is not subtitled, but the language is fairly easy to follow, and the soundtrack will keep even lower-level students interested.
- Recommended by Richard Robin, Russian Language Film Review Editor

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Ivan Vasiljevich Menjaet Professiyu
Ivan Vasiljevich Changes His Occupation)
Mosfilm (1973)
Run time: 88 minutes
Based on a play by M.A. Bulgakov, this film is a witty comedy, and an adventure in time travel. Despite this well-trodden genre, film director Leonid Gaidai, a renowned Russian master of comedy, manages to make the movie entertaining and unconventional. Shurik, an inventor, creates a time machine and accidentally sends two of his contemporaries into the 16th century and into the palace of the tyrannical Russian tsar, Ivan the Terrible. To make the things more complex, the machine breaks, trapping the tsar in our time. The film has many musical scenes, and has been likened to "Monty Python". A copy of the film (with English subtitles) is available at http://www.rbcmp3.com.
- Recommended by Oksana Prokhvachev

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Kavkazskij plennik (Prisoner of the Caucasus) -1996
Director: Sergei Bodrov
Starring Oleg Menshikov (Burnt by the Son, East West, The Barber of Siberia)
and the late Sergei Bodrov Jr. (Brother I & II, East West).
The movie takes a glaring look into civil and ethnic conflict, in this modernized version of the Leo Tolstoy novel. Bodrov plays the young, fresh Vanya, contrasted by Menshikov’s hardened Sacha, two Russian soldiers who have been captured by the enemy. Their captor attempts to use the prisoners in a trade for the return of his own son, who is being held by the Russian army. This vivid tale reflecting on Russia’s experiences in Chechnya, won the audience award at Cannes, and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
- Recommended by Marissa Polsky

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Kukushka (The Cuckoo)- 2002
Director: Alexander Rogozhkin
Run time: 103 minutes
Alexander Rogozhkin, mostly famous in Russia for his comedies “Peculiarities of the National Hunt” and “Peculiarities of the National Fishing” creates a tragic-comical situation in his recent film “Kukushka.” The action is set in 1944 Finland where two soldiers, the Finnish sniper Veiko and the Soviet Army captain Ivan, as a result of war hardships, find shelter on the farm of a young Lapp widow Anny. Ivan doesn’t hide his hatred for Veiko who is wearing an SS uniform while he is trying without success to demonstrate his anti-war disposition. The woman, however, is glad to have two men around after being on the farm all alone. The fact that none of the three characters speaks the same language (we hear Russian, Finnish and Lapp in the movie) doesn’t prevent them from finding an understanding and discovering that they are only human. The film is very witty and funny but at the same time raises important questions of how wars affect people. It is nothing like you have ever seen before and I highly recommend it. It is available for rent from http://www.netflix.com
- Recommended by Oksana Prokhvacheva

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Oligarkh (Tycoon) - 2002
Run time: 128 minutes
This exciting Russian drama follows the rise and fall of a Russian "oligarch," (played by Vladimir Mashkov, Pugachev in "Russky Bunt", Sasha in "Behind Enemy Lines") that new class of businessman in Russian that sprung up from Gorbachev’s Perestroika. The movie portrays in an entertaining and riveting way the new morality of a new Russia. This movie is fantastic for those who are interested in the current economic and political situation in Russia.
- Recommended by Marissa Polsky

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Oseniiy Marafon (Autumn Marathon) - 1978
Although "Oseniiy Marafon" is almost thirty years old and I’m usually not the biggest fan of old movies, I highly recommend this movie. It tells the story of Andrei, a forty-something professor of English whose daily life consists of balancing his job, his wife, his mistress, his friend who is struggling with her interpretation career, and a professor from Denmark, who is learning Russian and staying with Andrei. At the beginning he seems to have everything under control more or less. But as the plot progresses, just about everything imaginable goes wrong and his worst fear, that he will lose both his wife and his mistress, seems about to come true. The scenes are laced with both humor and sadness and this makes for a wonderful contrast. In addition, the movie addresses a number of realities of Soviet life during the 70s and for me this was a real eye-opener.
-Recommended by Anna Pavlitchenko

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Russky Bunt (Russian Rebellion) -2000
Run time: 120 minutes
This is an excellent screen adaptation of the Pushkin Classic "The Captain’s Daughter," which takes place during the Pugachev Rebellion 1773-1774. Mateuz Damiecki plays the noble Pyotr Grinyov, whose courage and fortitude impresses the rebel leader, Emilyan Pugachev, played by Vladimir Mashkov. This story is excellent for those who love historical and literary adaptations.
- Recommended by Marissa Polsky

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Solaris (1971)
Andrei Tarkovky’s 1971 version of the Stanislaw Lem book dwarfs the 2003 Hollywood copy in its philosophical scope if not its less than stunning special effects. Mosfilm envisioned the movie as a response to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Psychologist Chris Kelvin is sent to the space station orbiting the planet Solaris to find out why the remaining members of a skeletal crew have turned into psychological basket cases. Upon arrival, Chris learns that one crew member has committed suicide, another is on the verge of insanity, and the third has locked himself in his lab. Then there are the "guests" that keep on showing up - including Chris’s long-dead wife. Solaris, it turns out, is a huge brain that manufactures beings, based on the scientists' dreams. It may sound like a bad Star Trek (first generation) plot, but the film’s steady pacing, fantastic acting, and clean, simple language make this a joy to watch. One piece of advice, though: fast-forward through the meaningless eight-minute Hong Kong expressway scene. Available on DVD.
- Recommended by Rich Robin

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