Aleksei Balabanov

Alexei Balabanov (Brother) directed this period film, set in turn-of-the-century St. Petersburg, where a middle-class family and an upper-class family both become intertwined with pornographic photographer Johann (Sergei Makovetsky). Dr. Stasov (Alexandr Mezentsev) treats railroad engineer Radlov (Igor Shibanov). (Dreaming Ant)

Two British actors are kidnapped somewhere in Georgia and are delivered to Chechnya. The kidnappers demand a ransom, while victims are sitting in a hole in the ground. That's where they meet captain Medvedev (Sergey Bodrov Jr) and Ivan Ermakov (Aleksey Chadov)... (IMDB Comments)

Danila goes to his older brother to start a new life in Petersburg. His brother is a gangster and a killer, and he puts Danila into this criminal world asking him to kill someone. There his new life starts, he meets new people, a girl, becomes a big fan of the rock band "Nautilus Pompillius". Now he is a killer, and killing is easier than living for him. Realizing this makes him understand he is going the wrong way. (imdb)

Danila Bagrov meets his army buddy Konstantin Gromov in Moscow, with whom he fought in Chechnya. The friend tells Danila about his twin brother Dmitry, who is a professional hockey player in America. However, the team owner in cahoots with his Russian partner have swindled the young star into an oppressive contract, allowing them to rob him blind... (imdb)

Sergei and Simon have to deliver a suitcase full of heroin to Mikhalych or else they will be killed. There is one minor detail: the only problem-solving technique they are familiar with is a shot in the head. There are more than 20 Russian-movie stars in the film, but you will not be able to recognize them immediately since they are all in disguise. (imdb)

A land surveyor comes to a snow-covered village dominated by a castle. Even though he has been ordered to come to do some work for the castle, the exact nature of his job seems to be lost in the intimidating bureaucracy governing the village's life. Based on the unfinished novel by Franz Kafka.

Set in 1984, before Perestroika, main action is divided between Leninisk, a hideous industrial town where Capt. Zhurov (Alexei Poluyan) lives with his drunk-to-the-point-of-oblivion mother (Valentina Andryukova) and an isolated shack where Alexei (Alexei Serebryakov) and his wife Tonya (Natalya Akimova) sell grain alcohol. (Variety)

A drama that chronicles the civil war that raged after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. (imdb)

After being released from hospital, a man struggles through a life of poverty and alienation on the streets of St. Petersburg.

The stoker is a veteran of the Afghan war: a retired major and hero of the USSR who spends his life in an old boiler room, writing a book and shovelling coal into the boiler. Every now and then, an old veteran friend pays him a visit, to burn something other than coal. (filmfestivalrotterdam.com)

A young man goes into business with his friends to cash in on gullible New Russians--and falls in love with his first client. (yahoo.com)

An unfinished film focusing on the struggle of a small leper colony located in a Yakut taiga during the late 19th century.

Sanja the Bandit after a particularly vicious shootout, stumbles into the musician Oleg at the local banya. Following a retelling of a semi-mythological story, the pair decide to make a pilgrimage to a "bell-tower of happiness".

One of the three films that comprise Arrival of a Train, a collection of shorts made to celebrate the centenary of cinema. Set at the turn of the 20th century, the film follows Trofim, a Russian peasant jealous of his wife for having an affair with his brother. Trofim kills his brother and runs away to St. Petersburg. Then Trofim steps off the train in St. Petersburg, a cameraman who happens to be shooting on the platform captures his arrival.