Russia's Mystery Files
★ 5 · 2014 · Documentary
The Soviet Union was a sinister world. Now the Iron Curtain has fallen, and for the first time we can investigate those rumours.
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Lenin and the Other Story of the Russian Revolution
2017 · ★ 7.5
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…
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1986 · ★ 4
Documentary about the ten days the director spent in Moscow, during the 1986 Moscow Youth Festival, as kind of a gay delegate.
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Traces: People of the Peacock
2016
Filmmaker Binevsa Bêrîvan travels to Armenia to capture the daily life, customs, and history of the country's Yazidi Kurdish community.
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Pussy Versus Putin
2013 · ★ 5.5
In 2012 two members of anarchistic female band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Mordovian labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Russian film collective Gogol’s Wives follow each step of the feminist punk band’s battle against Putin including their first disruptive performances on a trolley bus, shooting a video about transparent elections, a controversial performance in a Red Square cathedral, and footage shot in a jail cell. Support comes from many corners including Madonna who painted the words "Pussy Riot" on her back and wore a balaclava during her Moscow show. The documentary portrays the grim state of present-day Russia, a country starkly divided between conservatism and anarchy. Pussy Riot believes that art has to be free and they're willing to take it to extremes. "Pussycat made a mess in the house," they say, and the house is Russia. The filmmakers do not seek to moralize, they simply edit events and leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.
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1997 · ★ 6.5
This profile of homeless young people in St. Petersburg, Russia, uses subtitles and narration to tell their tales, many of which focus on drugs, neglect and abuse.
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TaMtAm - Music of the time of troubles
2017 · ★ 7
Documentary film about the first St. Petersburg music club TaMtAm. It existed since 1991 upon 1996 and was held by Vsevolod Gakkel, ex-cellist of "Аквариум". The concept was modelled on cult NY club CBGB-OMFUG. Despite its controversial history this is the place where a new generation of Russian punk music was discovered.
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Leninland
2013 · ★ 1
At the peak of Perestroika, in 1987, in the village of Gorki, where Lenin spent his last years, after a long construction, the last and most grandiose museum of the Leader was opened. Soon after the opening, the ideology changed, and the flow of pilgrims gradually dried up. Despite this, the museum still works and the management is looking for ways to attract visitors. Faithful to the Lenin keepers of the museum as they can resist the onset of commercialization. The film tells about the modern life of this amazing museum-reserve and its employees.
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The Russian Revolution
2017 · ★ 6.3
Starting in 1881 this film shows the personal battle between Lenin's Ulyanov family and the royal Romanovs that eventually led to the Russian revolution.
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2019 · ★ 7
Only women, children and old people live in this Armenian village, while the men work in Russia. A life with a rhythm of its own, an independent daily life marked nonetheless by exile.
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Rich Hall's Red Menace
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2019 marks the 30th year since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Rich Hall examines the relationship between the West and the USSR in his inimitable fashion.
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2017 · ★ 7.5
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Horowitz in Moscow
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A recording of Horowitz's historic 1986 recital in Moscow, the program also includes highlights of his return to his native Soviet Union--his first visit in 61 years.
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