The General Line

The General Line 1929

6.50

Also known as The Old and the New (Staroye i Novoye), The General Line illustrates Lenin’s stated imperative that the nation move from agrarian to industrial culture in an epic ode to farm-collectivization progress.

1929

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

October (Ten Days that Shook the World) 1928

6.80

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

1928

The Ghost That Never Returns

The Ghost That Never Returns 1930

5.80

The rebel leader Jose Real is allowed to leave prison for one day to visit his family. But it is a ruse to make him reveal the whereabouts of his rebel gang. This existential drama disguised as a saga about the proletarian struggle presents a lonely and insecure individual who is challenged to act more heroically than he is prepared to, but who constantly questions his confidence and loyalties.

1930

Mutiny

Mutiny 1929

1

Central Asia during the Civil War. The Jarkent battalion of the Red Army, located in the Verny (now Alma-Ata), receives an order from Frunze to go to the Fergana region to fight the Basmachi. A group of kulaks, with the support of local merchants and beys, incites the unconscious, wavering mass of the Red Army to revolt. The anti-Soviet agitation of counter-revolutionaries, demagogically exploiting the mood of war weariness, provokes an open mutiny in the battalion.

1929

Reis mistera Lloyda

Reis mistera Lloyda 1927

5.50

About the fate of a ex-Wrangel's White Army soldier who flees from the Foreign Legion and returns to the USSR.

1927

The New Babylon

The New Babylon 1929

6.00

In the short-lived Commune of Paris, a conscripted soldier falls in love with a Communard saleswoman. As the army cracks down on the revolutionaries, the soldier is forced to fight against the Commune, and the pair's love is put to the test.

1929

Shame

Shame 1932

4.40

Shame or Counterplan is a 1932 Soviet drama film directed by Sergei Yutkevich and Fridrikh Ermler. The film’s title-song called "The Song of the Counterplan", composed by Dmitri Shostakovich, became world famous and was adapted into "Au-devant de la vie", a notable song of the French socialist movement of the 1930s. This film could be considered as a Stalin propaganda film. The plot involves an effort to catch "wreckers" at work in a Soviet factory. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1932

Samoyed Boy

Samoyed Boy 1928

4.50

Adventures of a Nenets boy, who returns to his homeland from Moscow an educated young man.

1928

Bed and Sofa

Bed and Sofa 1927

6.50

Life changes for a Moscow couple after they allow an old friend of the husband’s to move in.

1927

A Sixth Part of the World

A Sixth Part of the World 1926

6.80

Through the travelogue format, it depicts the multitude of Soviet peoples in remote areas of USSR and details the entirety of the wealth of the Soviet land. Focusing on cultural and economic diversity, the film is in fact a call for unification in order to build a "complete socialist society".

1926

The Last Attraction

The Last Attraction 1929

6.50

A travelling circus troupe during the Civil War. A kommissar tries to transfer the wagon into an agit-prop van. The Whites conquer the town. The kommissar hides among the artists.

1929

Lace

Lace 1928

6.00

Since director Sergei Yutkevich was a longtime lover of American slapstick, his first films were imbued with a playfulness and cheeriness not typical of Russian cinema. And Kruzheva is a good example of that as he illustrates the friendly rivalries between the youths on village in both a very rough and clowning way.

1928

Fragment of an Empire

Fragment of an Empire 1929

5.80

Director Frederick Ermler’s last silent feature and the last of four collaborations with actor Fiodor Nikitin. Nikitin plays an officer who spends a decade after the Great War as a shell-shocked amnesiac, until a glimpse of a woman through a train window sparks the return of his memory. He makes his way back to St. Petersburg, now Leningrad, a man out of time who struggles to make sense of the new society brought about by the revolution.

1929

The Post

The Post 1929

4.90

A boy is sitting at a table, writing a letter for Boris Prutkov. The cartoon follows the journey of this letter from Rostov to Leningrad, where its addressee Prutkov has just left for Berlin; when the letter arrives in Berlin, Prutkov has just departed for London; as the letter arrives in London, Prutkov is already on a steamboat to Brazil, and once the letters is delivered by postman Don Basilio, Prutkov is already on his way back to Leningrad– where the letter, having followed Prutkov around the world, finally reaches him. The film sings a song of praise to the global postal services and to the reliability of the postmen, but it also tells the story of a journey around the world, returning once more to the new Soviet capital: Leningrad.

1929

The Peasant Women of Ryazan

The Peasant Women of Ryazan 1927

6.50

The picture compares the fate of two heroines Anna and her lively and energetic sister-in-law Vasilisa, who openly defies the old way of life.

1927

Katerina Izmailova

Katerina Izmailova 1966

3.70

Katerina Izmailova is a filmization of Dmitry Shostakovich's long-suppressed 1936 opera. Galina Vishnevskaya stars as Katerina, a bored 19th century farm wife. At the behest of her grungy lover, Katerina murders her husband and her father-in-law. She and her new beau are both sent to Siberia, where the lover almost immediately takes up with a younger woman. Banned by Stalin for its bleak portrait of Soviet life, Katerina Izmailova was not given a Russian staging for over 40 years; its Metropolitan Opera debut did not occur until 1994. Dmitri Shostakovich also wrote the screenplay for the screen version of Katerina Izmailova.

1966

The Poet and the Tsar

The Poet and the Tsar 1927

5.80

Tsar Nicholas I is enamoured by Natalia, the wife of Alexander Pushkin. To cover his tracks, the tsar encourages the suit of Georges d'Anthès, a French officer, with the help of Count Alexander von Benckendorff. Pushkin hears rumours of D’Anthès’s love for his wife and challenges him to a duel. The officer attempts to save his life by marrying Natalia’s sister Ekaterina. Returning from his country estate, Pushkin receives anonymous letters and insists on a duel with D’Anthès.

1927

Blue Express

Blue Express 1929

3.40

Chinese workers start a rebellion, arm themselves and take over the train on which they are travelling and manage to break through the frontier.

1929