FILMOGRAPHY RUSSIA
The videos contained in the list are produced in Russia or are about Russia, it includes culture, history, arts, literature, politics, etc. For further information on a title please use our online catalog or feel free to contact Cindy Badilla-Melendez, the Media Resources Librarian or call (651) 962-5464.
Catherine the Great: DK170 .C38 2006 DVD
The story of Catherine the Great, a young girl who would transform herself from an obscure German Princess into Russia's most powerful regent.
Conquerors: D107 .C66 1996 v.2
A two part series discussing the lives of four great rulers and their impact on the fate of nations throughout history. v. 2 - Peter the Great; Suleyman the Magnificent.
Cop World: HV7936.J63 C6 1999 pt. 1-2
Looks at various police forces in cities throughout the world. Addresses issues that affect different countries (such as Brazil, China, Germany, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and the United States) and how the police force in that country handles the local situation.
The Crash: HF1359 .C73 1999 DVD
Explores the dynamics of the global economy in an era of instability. Less than a year ago, Russia devalued its ruble and defaulted on its debts. Ten days later, the world's major markets tumbled and American investors saw the worth of their savings and retirement funds plummet. Fear spread that the global economy was indeed unraveling and arguments arose over who were the real culprits in the crisis.
Discover Russia: DK29 .D53 1990
A series of brief scenes that a tourist might see during a visit to Russia. Locations shown are in Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov-Veliki, and Zagorsk.
The Face of Russia: NX556.A1 F32 1998 v.1-3
Explores the art and culture of Russia in a journey across history, encompassing Russia's architecture, paintings, music, literature and cinema. Part 1 examines icon painting, the first Russian art form, and reveals the spiritual ideas that have animated Russia for 1000 years, and witnesses recent restorations of churches and monasteries from Kiev to the Kremlin. Part 2 examines Russian architecture from Eastern-inspired onion domes to Western-type palaces. Also looks at the work of Gogol who revealed the human suffering behind Russia's facade. His Dead Souls inspired 19th-century radicals and Soviet dissidents, and continues to influence Russian artists today. Part 3 explores Russian music and cinema and looks at how new media forms are shaping Russia today. Musorgsky's opera Boris Godunov dramatized the conflict between power and the people. Sergei Eisentsein retold history with silent films of such power that they became more real than actual events.
Food Distribution in Russia: HF1416.6.R8 F6 1992
Presents an overview of Russian agricultural and food marketing and distribution system historically and in the present.
Conversations with Gorbachev: DK290.3.G67 C6 1995
Mikhail Gorbachev and Stephen Cohen discuss Gorbachev's rise to power in the Soviet system, developments under his leadership, the nature of his reforms, his role in ending the Cold War, his assessments of Boris Yeltsin's leadership, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and relations between the United States and Russia since 1991.
Great Decisions 1997: E744 .G74 1997 pt.3
Discusses the major foreign policy issues of 1997.
The Hermitage: N3350 .H46 1994 v.1-3
This series tours the history of the art collection at the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg. From Catherine the Great to Stalin, the series reviews the intertwinings of history and art which resulted in beneficial and tragic changes to the collection.
Hermitage Masterpieces: N3350 .H47 2004 v.1-3
After a brief history of the founding of St. Petersburg and a biographical sketch of Peter the Great, the viewer is taken on a tour of the galleries of the Hermitage Museum housing masterpieces from ancient China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the 20th Century.
History Through Literature: Russia: PG3011 .H57 2000 DVD
Examines the history of Russia from the early 19th century until the mid-1970s using the works of Russian writers and novelists.
In the Name of Love: HQ1032 .I58 2002 DVD
What's motivating the thousands of Russian women who sign up with agencies to meet and marry American men? From the gray skies of St. Petersburg to sunny California ranches, we see the financial and emotional pros and cons of exporting one's heart. The film grapples with the tremendous economic challenges and difficult decisions facing Russian women today.
The Life and Times of Josef Stalin: DK268.S8 L5 2004 DVD
This is the documentary story of the man who subverted the Russian Revolution: born in 1879 in Georgia, a region colonized by Russia at the beginning of the 19th century; studied for the priesthood but soon abandoned piety for insurrection and agitation. By the time of the Revolution, his unique skills had emerged: to be in the right place at the right time and leave the speechifying to others while accumulating political power behind the scenes
A Life in Two Days: HC340.12 .L54 1995 DVD
Elena Turina and Vladimir Turin live with their children and grandchildren in a working class suburb of Moscow. This film describes how they have adapted in the transition from communism.
The Longest Hatred: DS145 .L66 1993 v.1-2
The program traces anti-Semitism from its earliest manifestations in antiquity to the recent ominous outbreaks in Germany, Russia, and elsewhere.
Moscow, From Marx to McDonald's: DK601.2 .M67 1996
One of a five-part series that focuses on different Russian regions and explores how life has changed, both socially and economically, due to recent economic and political changes. This segment explores Moscow and its surrounding region, an area representing the largest population center in Russia. Looks at what makes this city of ten million distinctive as a great capital city, and examines Moscow's role as the center of urban and economic development in the new Russia. Uses three-dimensional graphic simulations of the city to allow viewers to "fly" across the landscape and into Moscow to understand its network of roads, railroads, and suburbs. In addition to looking at Moscow's role as the seat of the government, visits several local businesses, including a factory, a bank, and the biggest McDonald's in the world.
Post-Soviet Russia: HC340.12 .P6 1997 DVD
This program examines how the Russian city of Gorky has adapted to a free enterprise system. We see public reaction to the auction of government property, and the opening of private markets. Class divisions become apparent in interviews with the Russian nouveau riche, the Mafia, and average citizens. Ordinary people, tired of waiting for economic benefits promised through privatization, support communist political candidates who promise renewed state control and a return to traditional Russian values. Depicts the city as being torn apart by violent tensions and antagonisms that exist between advocates of reform and Neo-Communists.
Powerplay: End of an Empire: D849 .P69 1998
Second in a two-part series that looks at the Cold War. This segment focusts on the 1970s and 1980s. In the midst of the trauma of the Vietnam War, a U.S. diplomatic strategy evolves that begins the unraveling of the Soviet Empire. Focuses on such key events and tactics as d?tente, the manipulations that sparked Middle East tensions between Soviet-supported Egypt and American-backed Israel, the historic trip to China by Richard Nixon, the SALT talks, the "dirty little wars" in Central America, the Reagan Revolution and his Strategic Defense Initiative, the fall of the Berlin Wall, "perestroika" and "glasnost," and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union. Features historian Michael Beschloss and interviews with Margaret Thatcher, Norman Schwarzkopf, Mikhail Gorbachev, Presidents Carter, Reagan and Bush and others, along with the use of previously classified U.S. and Russian documents.
Retail Distribution in Russia: HF1416.6.R8 R4 1992
Discusses the system of distribution of retail goods in Russia from past, present, and future perspectives.
The Rise & Fall of the Soviet Union: DK266 .R57 1992 pt.1-2
An overview of more than 700 years of Russian history beginning with the conquests of military hero Alexander Nevski in 1240 and ending with the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991.
Russian Ark: PN1997 .R87 2003 DVD
A modern filmmaker magically finds himself transported to the 18th century where he embarks on a time-traveling journey through 300 years of Russian history. The first feature film ever created in a single take.
The Russian German War: D764 .R87 2004 DVD
Through rare archival film footage this video details the horrors of the war between the Germans and the Russians on the Eastern Front during World War II.
Russia for Sale: HC336.26 .R87 1991
An intimate view of three people whose lives have been caught up in Russia's economic reforms and their efforts to build a free market society.
Russia Land of the Tsars: DK61 .R87 2003 v.1-2 DVD
This epic program encompasses nearly a thousand years of despair and rebellion, innovation and conflict, from the first settlement of Russe Vikings to the brutal murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. The lives and complicated legacies of figures like Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Rasputin are explored in two episodes. Russian: Land of the Tsars blends rare source materials, historical re-enactments, expert commentary, and exceptional footage. Events include the December Revolution and Napoleon's ill-fated invasion and how they changed history.
Russian Orthodox: BX493 .R87 2004 DVD
This program examines the rituals of the Russian Orthodox Church. Persecuted under communism, it is now flourishing and exerting an impact on Russian life.
St. Petersburg: DK552 .S35 1994
Explore elegant St. Petersburg, built in the early 18th century as Russia's proud new capital. Conceived by Tsar Peter the Great as a grandiose version of his favorite European city, Amsterdam, the architecture of St. Petersburg reflects a range of European influences. Its beautiful palaces and quiet elegance belie its troubled history, yet as you explore the city you'll find clues to the political turmoil that give St. Petersburg its haunting character.
Soviet Disunion: Ten Years Which Shook the World: DK286 .S68 1997
Through interviews with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze, as well as other official and private persons, and contemporary film records, this documentary presents the events since in the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1995.
Spirit of a People: DK510.762 .S6 1994
Features interviews with Russian citizens discussing everyday life and social conditions in Russia, both before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, from 1990 to the present day.
The Steppes: HD1995.15 .S74 1996
One of a five-part series that focuses on different Russian regions and explores how life has changed, both socially and economically, due to recent economic and political changes. This segment joins a small group of farmers for the wheat harvest on the vast plains of the Russian Steppes. It is some of the best farmland in the country--flat, fertile, and very hot in the summer--and it's about as far south as one can go in the new Russia. Explores the impact on farming methods and the way of life for Russian farmers, as the giant collective farms of the Communist era have given way to farmers who now own their own land. Using three-dimensional graphics and aerial photography, flies over the region to show the region's geographical relationship to the rest of Russia.
World War II: Why We Fight: D743 .W48 2000 v.3
In these films, Frank Capra directed a series to explain the necessity of the Second World War to the American people. Often using film footage from enemy sources, the series is a copmpelling contemporary document of how motion pictures can be used as propaganda for the purpose of arousing a nation to fight.
Yeltsin: DK290.3.Y45 Y4 2000
This intriguing program traces Yeltsin's climb to the top of the Communist Party and his personal power struggle with Mikhail Gorbachev. Interviews with opposition leaders as well as many of Yeltsin's top advisers, including Eduard Shevardnadze, Boris Nemtsov, and Yeltsin's wife, Naina, provide a candid appraisal of a man who changed the course of world history.
Alexander Nevsky: PN1997 .A43 2001 DVD
Biographical story of Prince Alexander Nevsky and his successful resistance against an attempt by the Teutonic Knights to invade Russia in 1242.
Andrei Rublev: N8189.5.R8 A5 1998 DVD In Russian with English subtitles
Set in Russia during the 15th century. Commissioned to paint the interior of the Vladimir cathedral, Andrei Rublev leaves the Andronnikov monastery. In his travels he witnesses the sorrows of his fellow Russians, due to the plague and the pillaging and oppression of Mongols. Faced with the brutalities of the world outside the religious enclave, Rublev's faith is shaken, prompting him to question the uses of art in a degraded world. After Mongols sack the city of Vladimir, burning the cathedral that he has been commissioned to paint, Rublev takes a vow of silence and withdraws from his work, moving back to the monastery. The second part of the film tells the story of Boriska, a young boy who convinces a group of travelling bell-makers that he possess the gift of bell-making. The men take Boriska along with them out of pity, but are quickly enthralled by the boy's ambition to build the perfect bell. Finally, on the appointed day when the silver bell is lifted from the ground and set in place, the bell rings. Amid this activity, Rublev appears, and is drawn to Boriska's courage and desire to create. Rublev then decides to put aside his vow of silence, and serve as the boy's confessor, and eventually discovers that his faith, and art, have been renewed.
Ballada o Soldate: PN1997 .B35 2002 DVD
A soldier-boy earns a ten-day leave to go home to his mother by performing a desparate act of bravery at the front. On the way home he has many small adventures.
Battleship Potemkin: PN1997 .B39 1990
A partly fictitious account of the mutiny at Odessa, an episode in the 1905 revolution.
The Battleship Potemkin: PN1997 .B756 2007 DVD Silent film with English intertitles, or Russian intertitles with optional English subtitles
Re-creates the 1905 mutiny on the battleship "Prince Potemkin." It focuses on a mutiny by the battleship's crew and the subsequent massacre of civilians, reflecting the spirit of the times.
Brat: PN1997 .B73 2007 DVD In Russian with English subtitles
Young Russian Danila returns home after serving two years in the military, when he discovers that his older brother, Viktor, has become a contract killer in post-Soviet St. Petersburg and is involved in a Mafia war. Wanting to help, Danila joins the mobsters to become Viktor's assistant. He is wounded on his first assignment, to murder The Chechen, a prominent crimelord, and is taken care of by a man known only as the German while Danila stays in hiding from the The Crechen's men.
Burnt by the Sun: PM1997 .U86 2003 DVD In Russian with English subtitles
Set in 1930 Russia. Colonel S. Kotov, a hero of the Revolution, is spending the summer in the country with his young daughter, his wife and her eccentric family. But when his wife's childhood love suddenly appears, the idyllic summer day takes a surprising turn.
Chelovek s Kino-Apparatom: PN1997 .C444 2003 DVD
Dziga Vertov's Man with a movie camera is considered one of the most innovative and influential films of the silent era. This dawn-to-dusk view of the Soviet Union offers a montage of urban Russian life, showing the people of the city at work and at play, and the machines that endlessly whirl to keep the metropolis alive.
Commissar: PG3476.G7 C6 2007 DVD In Russian with English subtitles
Set against the Russian Civil War from 1917-1923. Klavdia Vavilova, a Red Army commander's military career is disrupted by an unplanned pregnancy. Forced to stay with a poor Ukrainian Jewish family until her child is born, she finds herself transformed by the warmth and compassion of her hosts. However, once the baby is born Klavdia must ultimately decide whether to rejoin her troops or stay with her child.
Dersu Uzala: PN1997 .D477 2000 DVD
Dersu Uzala is the story of an elderly guide and Goldi hunter, who at the turn of the century, agrees to shepherd a Russian explorer and a troop of soldiers through the most treacherous passages of the Far East. The guide has been one with the land almost from birth, and is thus able to save his party from perishing.
Doctor Zhivago: PG3476.P27 D6 2001 DVD
A poet and surgeon, husband and lover finds his life disrupted by war. It alters the lives of many, including Tonya, the gentle woman he marries and Lara, the woman he cannot forget.
Doctor Zhivago: PG3476.P27 D6 1988 pt.1-2
A film about the Russian Revolution as seen through the eyes of a doctor/poet. Doctor Zhivago sees his life torn apart by the Revolution and the alterations also affect the lives of many around him, including the gentle woman he marries and the fascinating other woman he cannot forget.
Est-Ouest: PN1997 .E877 2000 DVD
Follows the story of an expatriate Russian and his French wife as they return to the Soviet Union in 1946 and learn to live in the post-war Soviet Union. The story eventually revolves around the struggle of Marie to decide if she should stay or leave.
Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: PG3326.P7 Z4 2005 DVD
Considered the first modern novel, Crime and Punishment is both a compelling psychodrama and an unrelenting examination of modern humankind. This classic program skillfully interweaves riveting dramatizations of Fyodor Dostoevvsky's masterpiece with Notes from the Underground and the autobiographical Memoirs from the House of the Dead. Penetrating observations are provided by Professor John Jones, of Oxford University, who scrutinizes the merciless introspection inherent in these works.
Ivan Groznyi: PN1997 .I93 2001 DVD
Set in Moscow during the 16th century, Ivan Alexieff, Prince of Moscow, is crowned Tsar Ivan. This action puts him in direct opposition to all other royal families and Ivan finds himself isolated and alone in his attempt to centralize power under the crown.
Koktebel: PN1997 .K65 2005 DVD
A father sets off from Moscow with his 11-year-old son for his sister's house in Koktebel by the Black Sea. With no money, nor means of transportation, they drift through the expansive and mesmeric landscapes at the mercy of chance. For the father, the journey is an attempt to restore self-respect and win back the trust of his son. For the boy, the mythic coastal town holds the key to a new life.
Korolb Lir: PR2819 .A23 2004 DVD
King Lear had three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. One day he banished and repudiated his youngest and most loved daughter. But the evil elder sisters betrayed their father and blinded him. Having lost not only his kingdom the old Lear, accompanied by his loyal jester, finally saw the light of truth and was reunited with Cordelia who was not afraid to share her father's fate.
October: PN1997 .O28 1998 DVD Silent film with English titles
Eisenstein's third major film is a reconstruction of the events from February 1917 leading up to the Revolution, the Bolsheviks' overthrow of the Czarist's and Kerensky's provisional government in October. On the tenth anniversary, when the film was made, Leningrad, its streets and buildings, the Winter Palace and the corridors of the Smolny were still the same as they were a decade before. The film thus renders a stirring eye-witness account of the early days of the Revolution.
The Return: PN1997 .V70 2004 DVD
Within the emotional vacuum of a fatherless childhood, young brothers Andrei and Ivan have grown closer than most siblings. But when they least expect it, the father the boys have never known returns. Under the cool midnight sun of a coastal Russian summer, Andrei and Ivan eagerly hop into a car for a week long fishing trip with a complete stranger they desperately need to believe is their father. But as they travel deeper into the Russian wilderness, their journey devolves from vacation to boot camp to father-sons love triangle and ultimately to a test of wills that pushes to the brink of violence. As it dawns on the boys that the man who could be their father might be trying to abandon, exploit, or kill them. The Return's Jungian landscape gives way to fervid Freudian rage, shocking loss and bittersweet redemption.
Stachka: PN1997 .S72 2000 DVD Russian intertitles with English subtitles
Based on the 1905 Russian Bolshevik revolution. Due to the suicide of a worker unjustly accused of theft, a strike is called by the laborers of a Moscow metalworks factory. The managers, owner and the Czarist government dispatch infiltrators in an attempt to break the workers' unity. Unsuccessful, they hire the police and the unarmed strikers are slaughtered in the confrontation.
Stalin: K268.S8 S8 1993 DVD
Stalin's rise from obscure revolutionary to feared leader of Russia is documented in vivid detail in this epic.
Storm Over Asia: PN1997 .S76 1999 DVD
Revolutionary drama centered on a young Mongol thought to be descended from Genghis Khan whom imperialists seek to use to further their expansionist interests. After a series of misadventures the young man rebels and leads his people against their oppressors.
War and Peace: PG3365 .V6 2002 DVD
War and Peace centers broadly on Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. The film focuses on three main characters, Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves behind his family to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman, who is desired by both men. As Napoleon's army invades, we follow the characters from diverse backgrounds peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture.
War and Peace: PG3365.V6 W3 1989 pt.1-2
The personal stories of many characters, love affairs and philosophies are woven throughout this massive and intricate tapestry of Russia during Napoleon's invasion at the turn of the 19th century.
Zemlia: PN1997 .Z46 2001 DVD
After the death of his grandfather, Vasil wishes the neighboring farmers to share the use of a tractor purchased by the village council. Struggling against superstition, rich landowners and nature itself, he becomes the victim of a tragic murder.
Compiled by
Cindy Badilla-Melendez
Media Resources Librarian
