Preface to the catalogue

In the 60’s the cafe nicknamed “Saigon” was the favourite meeting place of Lenigrad artistic youth, belonging to the generation of Brodsky, Dovlatov, Shemyakin. These people represented the so called “second culture”. The cafe does not exist any longer, as there does not exist the underground art. However, there are people in St. Petersburg who still belong to “Saigon” and continue to live in accord with the “carnival” art traditions. The film gives a series of portraits of the most colorful representatives of the “second culture”.

The film is based on real facts related to the Stalinist era of the

30’s  40’s and is about real people: police informer, NKVD executioners, sons of the killed man and his executioner. Action of the film takes place in 1991, in Minusinsk, a provincial town in southern Siberia. What are the thoughts and feelings of these horrible old people, whose life will soon be over, who are standing on its last threshold?

1228 RAZBORCHIVY ZHENIKH (A FASTIDIOUS FIANCEE)

1992, 98 min., color, ”Petropol”, “Lenfilm” with input from “Ekran”

Lyrical comedy

Director: Sergei Mikaelyan, screenplay: Sergei Mikaelyan, Alexander

Vasinsky, camera: Eduard Rozovsky, production designer: Boris Burgomistrov, misic: Yuri Loza, sound: Igor Terekhov

Cast: Alexander Lykov, Yulia Menshova, Anna Matyukhina, Alexander Blok, Sergei Vybornov

Dima is so different from a typical modern cinema hero that sometimes he seems to be an extraterrestrial. He is stubbornly seeking for a true love and in his search is ready to go as far as Italy where one of his “ideals” fled to. His friends are honestly trying to help Dima which only leads to a series of incredible adventures.

Loosely based on the novel by Yasusi Inoue.

This amazing trip started on December 13, 1782 when captain Deikokuya Kodayu with sixteen sailors went on sailing along the coast of Japan. Having suffered a shipwreck near the Siberian coast the captain and his crew find themselves in the horrible reality of the 18th century Russia and go through a number of extraordinary adventures, full of sufferings, love, despair and wonders. Nobody expected that a several day trip will turn into nine years of wanderings, big losses and misfortunes.

1230 BARABANIADA (TALE OF A DRUM)

1993, 93 min., color

Written and directed by: Sergei Ovcharov, camera: Alexander Ustinov, production designers: Yevgeny Gukov, Viktor Ivanov, sound: Konstantin Zarin

Cast: Alexander Polovtsev, Andrei Urgant, Viktor Semenovsky

A drummer of a funeral orchestra comes into a possession of a “Stradivarius” drum and can not get rid of the instrument. The drum follows its owner in good and bad times and when the drummer looses his job the drum keeps following him in his wanderings all over the Soviet Union standing on the verge of crisis. This is the story of a “Russian Buster Keaton”, who gets out of one tragicomic situation only to get into another. There is no spoken text in the film. The music by Beethoven, Mozart, Minkus, Mussorgsky, Gavrilin and Glinka.

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  The film was awarded the Special Prize of the Jury and the Christian Jury Prize of the International Film Festival in Moscow (1993); the Prize for the Film Director’s Work in the Art Film Contest at the Open Russian Film Festival in Sochi (1993); “The Golden Eagle” – the Grand Prix of the International Film Festival in Georgia (1993); the Crystal Prize at the “Arsenal” International Film Festival in Riga (1994)
  

Choreographic version of the famous American film “The Waterloo Bridge”. The role of Maira is performed by Larisa Lezhnina, a rising star of the Mariinsky Theatre.

Based on Albert Camus’s story “Letters of the German Friend”.

The film tells about contemporary Russian Orthodox Church icon painters, about wonder-working icons and their impact on people and surrounding world.

One of the main heroes of the film is father Zenon, the Archimandrite of Pskov-Pechersky Monastery.

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  2nd price at The Open non-feature film festival “Russia” (full length) Ekaterinburg, 1993.
  

Adventure story loosely based on Ponson du Terrail’s novel “Adventures of Rocambole”.

Antique coins have been stolen from a Leningrad museum. Matvei Levitin, the suspect, disappears during the investigation of the case. Failing to find him the police arrests his wife. When a year later his mortally ill father returns, Kolya tries to arrange for him a meeting with his mother, using the opportunity of expected visit of Cuban leader Fidel Castro to the town of Gatchina.

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  The actress Yuliya Sobolevskaya was awarded the Jury Prize for the Actor’s Debut at the Open Russian Film Festival in Sochi 1994.
  

The year of 1015. Kiev. It is night. Vladimir, the prince of Kiev, is lying on his deathbed. He recollects the past times. In his restless mind he continues his last combat with his rebellious wife — pagan Rogneda.

Love story of a monk Agafangel (original name — Sergei) and a young girl Ninka does not have much to do with the notion of love. Father Agafangel is haunted by the horror of crime committed in his young days which eventually leads to tragic denouement and later continues to haunt Ninka who takes the veil and prays the God to forgive her sin.

The film is based on Viktor Yerofeyev’s novel of the same title.

An intellectual, for humanitarian reasons, takes and idiot to his house. He regards it as a kind of his mission. However, life with an idiot is full of surprises...Neither the lead character — the intellectual, nor his young wife were prepared to the seduction by violence in the face of the raving lunatic.

1239 KON BELY (WHITE HORSE)

1993, 10 parts, 52 min each, color, “Lada-Bank”, “Lada-2”, “Diapazon” (”Lenfilm”)

Historical drama

Written and directed by: Geliy Ryabov, camera: Oleg Plaksin, production designer: Yelizaveta Urlina, misic: Dmitry Smirnov, sound: Yelena Demidova, Eleonora Kazanskaya

Cast: Gennady Glagolev, Anatoly Guzenko, Veronika Izotova, Vladimir Simonov, Yekaterina Belikova, Elina Suvorova, Valery Doronin, Anatoly Petrov, Alexander Baluyev, Andrei Krasko, Igor Kartashov, Anna Afanasyeva, Geliy Sysoyev, Vladimir Belousov, Nikolai Burov

The film tells the story of Admiral Kolchak’s coming to power and tragic circumstances of his death, about exodus of the White Army and many other historical events. It also tells about the tragic end of Russian Royal Family and about the investigation of their execution conducted by investigator Sokolov on the instructions of Kolchak.

Based on Vladimir Nabokov’s short story.

The film tells about the early years of Vladimir Nabokov and his brother Sergei which coincided with revolutionary events of the beginning of the 20th century. These events sharply changed the world history as well as the live of the Nabokovs. Despite the tragic episodes of Nabokov’s youth (the tragic death of his father, the death of Maksim, an associate and friend of Nabokov, Sr.) love is the main subject of the film

1241 NAD TYOMNOY VODOY (OVER THE DARK WATER)

1993, 96 min., color, “Aurora-film” (Germany), “Nikola-film” with the input from “Lenfilm”

Melodrama

Director: Dmitry Meskhiyev, screenplay: Valery Todorovsky, camera: Pavel Lebeshev, production designer: Natalya Kochergina, misic: Sergei Kuryokhin, sound: Kirill Kuzmin

Cast: Kseniya Kachalina, Alexander Abdulov, Yuri Kuznetsov, Tatyana Lyutayeva, Vladimir Ilyin, Viktor Pavlov, Sergei Kuryokhin, Ivan Chuzhoy (Okhlobystin)

This is the legend of the intellectuals of the 60’s, full of direct and hidden references to the cinema of the 60’s, and, above all, to the creative work of Marlen Khutsiyev.

This is the film about a man who always wanted to live a different life, but lived the life he had.

He wanted to love truly, but was unfaithful, he wanted to be a good friend, but betrayed his friends. It is the love story of parents told by their children — with love.

The film offers two points of view (of current inhabitants and of the natives) on the problem of the Kuril islands.

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  The film was awarded the Second Prize of the “Balticum Film” International Festival in Bornholm, Denmark (1994); the Prize of the Aecumenic Jury of the “Message to Man” Documentary Film Festival in St.Petersburg (1994)
  

Zhenya, a reporter at the St. Petersburg TV studio, meets a parachute-jumper — a kind, loving and absolutely decent fellow. Bored with his virtues the heroine marries a famous journalist who continues to play dirty tricks on the parachute-jumper. Finally, Zhenya comes to her senses and asks an old friend to help her. Her friend, the director of a shipping company, first helps the parachute-jumper to leave the country and later helps Zhenya to find her beloved one in Hamburg.

The story is built round an ironic interpretation of cliches and stereotypes of Soviet genre films of the 50s — 70s. It is the story of three characters who escaped from prison and returned to their native town.

An humble forwarding agent Sizukhin is shocked to find out that for the last four years he has been working for drug dealers delivering cocaine instead of baby food all over the Soviet Union. Sizukhin decides to “get even” with the Mafia. For this purpose he engages a severe gangster Varyony.

The film is a striking example of a conceptualistic cinema.

Finding himself in a strange and unusual theatre the hero tries to understand its laws. However, his attempts only further complicate his feelings, awakening some deep unknown powers in him.

May be the theatre, that enchanted the hero, is nothing but his own inner world.

On the face of it, the film is composed of chaotic episodes of hero’s existence which later form a system inexorably drawing the hero to a vague aim.

1247 PROVINTSIALNY BENEFIS (A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE IN THE PROVINCES)

1993, 88 min., color, “AKKORD FILM”, “Bibliopolis”, “Lenfilm”

Melodrama

Written and directed by: Alexander Belinsky, camera: Eduard Rozovsky, production designer: Natalya Vasilyeva, misic: Valery Gavrilin, sound: Natalya Avanesova

Cast: Galina Vishnevskaya, Yelena Rostropovich, Svetlana Nemolayeva, Alexander Lazarev Jr., Anzhelika Nevolina, Vladislav Strzhelchik, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Vladimir Samoilov, Leonid Kuravlyov, Valentin Smirnitsky, Vsevolod Kuznetsov, Yelizaveta Nikishchikhina

Loosely based on Alexander Ostrovsky’s plays “Guilty Without Fault”, “Forest”, “Talents and Admirers”.

Many years ago Luybov Ivanovna Otradina, betrayed by the man she loved and deprived of her son, had to flee from the town of Murom. A famous opera singer, she returns to her native town to give her last concert before leaving the stage forever. The actors Schastlivtsev and Neschastlivtsev, Sasha Negina and Smelskaya are among the residents of the town…

1248 PUTESHESTVIYE V SCHASTLIVUYU ARAVIYU (A TRIP TO HAPPY ARABIA)

1993, 87 min., color, “Petropol”, “Lentelefilm” with the input from KINI-AVTO

Psychological thriller

Director: Valery Naumov, screenplay: Andrei Pastushenko, camera: Anatioly Rodionov, Sergei Sidorov, production designer: Nikolai Subbotin, misic: Leonid Rezetdinov, sound: Konstantin Zarin

Cast: Alexander Lykov, Valeria Likhodei, Leonid Leikin, Viktor Smirnov, Vadim Lobanov, Andrei Urgant, Viktor Zozyainov, Yuliya Yakovleva

Unlucky actor, upset by unsuccessful audition, hails a passing car driven by a pretty young woman. All of a sudden they become hostages of gangsters who are trying to get out of the city with the freight they received at the airport.

A Russian beauty Yuliya tired of routine hardships of her everyday life decides to leave her husband and marry a rich foreigner.

Forester Yuri Savushkin, enthusiast of nature conservation, protects animals and plants in Ugryumovsky forest reserve.

However, the quiet life in the reserve is disturbed by “researchers”, the young amateur naturalists, an American zoologist, an academician of zoology and others, seeking ecological rarities Children find a unique specimen — Glasyuka, but Savushkin the junior, Andy and the forester do their best to save this amazing creature from scientific experiments.

1251 SIKIMOKU (SIKIMOKU)

1993, 82 min., color, “MIST” with the input from “Neva” and “Lenfilm”

Christmas fairy tale

Director: Olga Zhukova, screenplay: Olga Zhukova, Viktor Mikheyev, camera: Vadim Semyonovykh, production designer: Boris Golodnitsky, misic: Viktor Mikheyev, sound Pavel Drozdov

Cast: Viktor Mikheyev, Yevgeny Lebedev, Yuri Olennikov, Olga Lapshina, Olga Golodnitskaya

A night-shift ambulance is patrolling the streets on a New Year’s Eve. It picks up those who need help — and in many cases not only medical help. It picks up people who are lonely, offended, forgotten...

The story is set in the beginning of the 19th century when Adygei people, confronted by the approaching trouble, realized the necessity to unite. This theme is revealed through the conflict of Dzhambot, the wise tutor of young Adygei noblemen, and prince Yedidz, the advocate of independent principalities.

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  The film was awarded the “Asturias” Prize at the III European Film Festival in Kandas, Spain (1993).