Kanopy (Firm)
1) Taxi blues
Language
Russian
Description
In a world filled with hustlers and black marketers, Shlykov, a hard-working, anti-semitic taxi driver, is pushed over the edge when Lyosha, a Jewish saxophonist who personifies everything he despises, stiffs him for a fare. Shlykov tracks the irresponsible musician down and the two form a bizarre love-hate relationship. At first, class and race division make friendship for these two nearly impossible, until they both learn they aren't so different...
2) Hipsters
Language
Russian
Description
Moscow 1955. Stalin has been dead two years, but not even Khrushchev's thaw can prevent Komsomol shock troops from hounding hipsters (stilyagi), fans of American jazz, culture and fashion. The student Mels, a Komsomol member, meets Polya, a hipster, while conducting a raid on a hipster hangout. Mels falls in love with Polya while his Communist comrade harbors romantic feelings for him. Mels ingratiates himself into Polya's group of hipsters who meet...
Language
Russian
Description
Dahab: atlas of dive sites explores the most interesting sites of Dahab (Egypt) and its environment. A special emphasis is made on the underwater world of the Red Sea. A full underwater guide to Dahab, descriptions and dive schemes for all the most interesting sites of Dahab are explored in detail. In additon to Dahab and the underwater world of the Red Sea, we take a trip to the Bedouins in the desert and to St. Catherine's Monastery.
Language
Russian
Description
When legendary Russian auteur Aleksei German died in 2013, he left behind this extraordinary final film, a phantasmagoric adaptation of the revered sci-fi novel by the Strugatsky Brothers (authors of the source novel for Tarkovsky's Stalker). Hard to be a God began percolating in German's consciousness in the mid-1960s, and would actively consume him for the last 15 years of his life. He brought the film close enough to completion for his wife and...
5) Kino-Eye
Language
Russian
Description
A cinematographic poem in which Vertov lays the foundation of his Kino-Eye principles, the film shows the incredible force of his theories, but also the beauty and energy of a society fresh from revolution, ready to face the challenges of a difficult future. Kino-Eye feature musical accompaniments by Alloy Orchestra and Robert Israel respectively.
Language
Russian
Description
Hailed by the New York Times as "An unexpected masterpiece," A slave of love is a witty and haunting film about moviemaking from the acclaimed Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the sun). Within the sun-drenched beauty of the Crimean summer, a Russian movie crew grapples with film shortages, Tsarist secret police scrutiny, and their own dysfunctional dynamic to churn out one more silent melodrama before the revolution in Moscow consumes the...
Language
Russian
Description
Long suppressed by missionaries and then by Soviet anti-religious campaigns, Siberian shamanism has experienced an unprecedented revival following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the number of shamans continues to rise. But who are these new shamans? Are they tricksters, magicians, businessmen, or cultural activists?
10) Vasermil
Language
Russian
Description
Named after the local soccer stadium in the Southern Israeli town of Beer Sheba, VASERMIL tells the story of three teenagers from separate marginalized communities, who pin their hopes on soccer as a way out. Shlomi, Adiel and Dima are recruited by the coach of the local soccer team to take part in the Beersheba Youth Championship, held on Independence Day at the Vasermil Stadium. Success at the tournament means getting noticed by the scouts of the...
12) My joy
Language
Russian
Description
A truck driver takes a wrong turn and finds himself lost in a bleak Russian underworld, struggling to survive amidst increasingly violent reminders of the country's dark history. The first fiction film by acclaimed documentarian Sergei Loznitsa, My Joy is a mischievous, ultra-nihilistic parable of post-Communist Russia, shot by master cinematographer Oleg Muto (The death of Mr. Lazarescu, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days).
Language
Russian
Description
Sharing a New Song brings together, albeit in a small way, the people of the two legendary world superpowers, the United States of America and the former Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the conflict extended beyond political concerns and manifested itself most noticeably in the alarmingly negative opinions that citizens of the two countries held about each other.
Language
Russian
Description
The documentary follows Yuri Vella, writer and social activist of the Forest Nenets living in West-Siberia. To give his grandchildren proper education in their natural environment and teach them reindeer herding skills, he establishes an elementary school in his winter camp.
Language
Russian
Description
Named the best documentary film of all time by Sight and Sound, it is presented here in its entirety for the first time since its original premiere. Discovered and restored at EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam--with extensive digital treatment by Lobster Films--the 35mm print from which this edition is, in part, sourced is the only known complete version of the film. The Man with the Movie Camera features musical accompaniment by The Alloy Orchestra....
16) Mayskaya Street
Language
Russian
Description
Winter 2015, Belarus. The presidential election is brewing. The omnipotent Lukashenko is running for a 5th. mandate at the head of this martyred country: devastated by World War II and then by Chernobyl. Kostia has just turned 18. He lives in the countryside, surrounded by his relatives: his grandmother who follows the presidential campaign on TV, the neighbor, a political opponent who restores the statues of the church, a photographer friend who...
17) Ward no. 6
Language
Russian
Description
A bold contemporary adaptation of Anton Chekhov's legendary short story, Ward no. 6 chronicles one man's descent into madness. Updating the 1892 tale to the present day, the film is shot in a real mental institution on the outskirts of Moscow, and features interviews with actual patients.
18) Aelita
Language
Russian
Description
The largest-scale and biggest-budget production of the 1920s. Exhausted by the post-revolutionary life, engineer Los builds a spaceship to travel to Mars. A tragic accident forces him to urgently make use of his invention. On Mars he falls in love with Queen Aelita, while the Red Army man who came with him raises a proletarian uprising. The revolution destroys the Martian civilization.
19) Dead Souls
Language
Russian
Description
Roman Kocherzhevsky’s endlessly inventive reimagining of Gogol’s classic Russian poem shakes off a layer of dust from the revered work to help us answer questions we all face today. It doesn’t matter whether Kocherzhevsky has dressed his actors in waterproof trench coats or embroidered tailcoats, furnished the stage with delicate antiquities or Danish modern. In the end, as Gogol himself asks of us, “Isn’t there some part of Chichikov in...
Language
Russian
Description
Krasnohorivka: a town on the front lines of the war-torn region of Eastern Ukraine. When poet/filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk first visits the Trofymchuk-Gladky family home, she is surprised by what she finds: while the outside world is made up of bombings and chaos, single mother Anna and her four children are managing to keep their home as a safe haven, full of life and full of light. Every member of the family has a passion for cinema, so it feels natural...