Agnieszka Holland : 2019

In March 1933, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones takes a train from Moscow to Kharkov in the Ukraine. He disembarks at a small station and sets off on foot on a journey through the country where he experiences at first hand the horrors of a famine. Everywhere there are dead people, and everywhere he goes he meets henchmen of the Soviet secret service who are determined to prevent news about the catastrophe from getting out to the general public. Stalin's forced collectivisation of agriculture has resulted in misery and ruin; the policy is tantamount to mass murder. Supported by Ada Brooks, a New York Times reporter, Jones succeeds in spreading the shocking news in the West, thereby putting his powerful rival, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, pro-Stalin journalist Walter Duranty, firmly in his place. Based on real events, the dramatic thriller recalls the legendary journalist Gareth Jones (1905-1935) who, despite fierce resistance, could not be dissuaded from telling the truth. Agnieszka Holland's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2019.

Kirill Serebrennikov : 2018
Лето

Leningrad, one summer in the early eighties, the period just before Perestroika. Smuggled vinyl albums by Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed and David Bowie inspire a growing Russian underground scene brimming with magic and creativity. But the State's resistance to Western influence is unbending. It is in this environment that the rock star Mike and his wife Natasha meet a young Viktor Tsoï who is eager to make a name for himself. The encounter with his idol and his beautiful wife will change Viktor's life forever. Together they will build his legend and make him immortal. And as a love triangle filled with passion develops, together they permanently change the musical landscape of the Soviet Union. Kirill Serebrennikov's feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2018.

Angelos Frantzis : 2018
Akínito potámi

Anna and Petros, a Greek couple who recently moved to an industrial Siberian town on account of Petros' work, are shocked to discover Anna is pregnant with no prior intercourse. Did she cheat? Are they victims of a conspiracy? Or blessed with a miracle? Looking for a logical explanation to their situation, Petros starts distrusting Anna, who chooses to embrace the pregnancy, turning to religion to cope. Their previously unshakeable bond starts to falter and cracks begin to show, as their relationship becomes the battleground between the rational and the spiritual. Set against the striking frozen landscapes of Siberia, a haunting, touching suspense drama about love, trust and faith struggling in the face of doubt. Angelos Frantzis's feature was winner of the Greek Film Critics Association Award when it premiered at Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2018.

Milko Lazarov : 2018

In the icy tundra of the Northern wilderness, reindeer hunter Nanook and his wife Sedna dream of reuniting with their daughter Ága, who left the slowly eroding traditional way of life a long time ago. In a yurt on the snow-covered fields, Nanook and Sedna live following the traditions of their ancestors. Their daily life is arduous, but they never complain. Instead, they tell each other the old legends, and their dreams. No matter whether they are describing imaginary encounters with animals, humans, the living or the dead, everything has its meaning. Alone in the wilderness, they look like the last people on Earth. Nanook and Sedna's traditional way of life starts changing – slowly, but inevitably. Hunting becomes more and more difficult, the animals around them die from inexplicable deaths and the ice has been melting earlier every year. Chena, who visits them regularly, is their only connection with the outside world and to their daughter Ága. When Sedna's health deteriorates, Nanook decides to fulfil her wish. He embarks on a long journey in order to find Ága. Milko Lazarov's second feature premiered out of competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018, and was winner of the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Feature Film when it screened in competition at Sarajevo Film Festival 2018.

Peter Stephan Jungk : 2016

Based on his non-fiction book Die Dunkelkammern der Edith Tudor-Hart, Peter Stephan Jungk explores the secret life of his great aunt Edith Tudor-Hart (born Edith Suschitzky in 1908, in Vienna, died 1973 in Brighton). She was best known in the art world as an iconic photographer. When she wasn't taking photos of Vienna's and London's workers and street children, of poverty and social deprivation she was working as a Soviet agent. Being a secret agent for the KGB doesn't seem to have come naturally to the photographer. She recruited Kim Philby, and was one of the architects of the Cambridge Five, the Soviet Union's most successful spy ring in Great Britain. Edith was Jungk's great aunt, his mother's cousin; the writer/filmmaker tries to unravel the truth about his aunt's life, in Austria, Great Britain and Russia. A documentary about the renowned photographer, about a spy with a conscience and hidden secrets in a family.

Tracking Edith – trailer (vimeo)

Vladimir Bitokov : 2018
Glubokie reki

Day after day in a forgotten corner of the Caucasus Mountains, a family of lumberjacks trudges through the impassable landscape to chop down and bring home wood in order to fulfil their contract with the local sawmill. When the father is seriously injured by a falling tree, his place must be taken by the youngest of the brothers, who left the impoverished region years before. His arrival opens old wounds and fuels conflicts within the family and in the hostile village. Stifled emotions and an oppressive image of a fragmenting society highlight themes of ineffectual communication and xenophobia. Vladimir Bitokov's feature debut was winner of Best Debut at Kinotavr Open Russian Film Festival 2018, and had its international premiere in competition in the East of the West section at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2018.

Alexey German : 2018

Leningrad, November 1971. The city is shrouded in fog. Another anniversary of the revolution is being celebrated, but the country is not making any progress – politically, economically or culturally. Sergei has first-hand experience of this stasis. The young writer's manuscripts are regularly rejected by the official media; his view on things and people is not desired. Others are experiencing similar problems, one of them is his friend Joseph Brodsky whom the state forces into exile. Sergei is however determined to stay and lead a normal life with his wife Lena and daughter Katya. He wants to write about discovering reality: about shipyard workers, or the construction of the metro where one day the bodies of thirty children killed during the Second World War are uncovered. The film portrays the world of Russian-Jewish writer Sergei Dovlatov (1941–1990), whose brilliantly ironic texts were forbidden from being printed in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev. Out of a tragicomic rondeau of rebellion and assimilation, pain and fatigue, ensues a portrait of an era of stagnation and its destructive effects. Alexey German's feature was winner of the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Boris Khlebnikov : 2017
Aritmiya

Oleg is heading for his thirties. He's a talented paramedic. His ambulance rushes from patient to patient. He knows his timely arrival can tip the scales of life and death. Each of his professional successes makes the world a little better. After a hard shift, he likes to take a few swigs. His wife Katya is also a doctor, working in the hospital's emergency department. But her patience with Oleg is running thin, so she announces one day that she wants a divorce – although they still have to share their poky apartment until Oleg finds a flat. He also discovers there are major changes at his workplace – the new boss at the hospital cares only about statistics and rules, which certainly doesn't make his life any easier. A study of a relationship experiencing an arrhythmia similar to that affecting the hearts of the patients Oleg treats in his ambulance. Boris Khlebnikov's feature premiered at Kinotavr Film Festival 2017, and had its international premiere in competition at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2017.

Andrey Zvyagintsev : 2017
Nelyubov

Boris and Zhenya are going through a divorce. Arguing constantly, and in the process of selling their apartment, they are already preparing for their new lives: Boris with his younger, pregnant girlfriend and Zhenya with the wealthy lover who is keen to get married. Neither seems interested in their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until he disappears. Unheard, unloved, and above all, unwanted, the introverted and unhappy boy feels that he is an intolerable burden, however, what his parents don't know is that he can hear every single word. As a result, when Boris and Zhenya finally realise that Alyosha has been missing for nearly two days, it is already too late. But is this a simple case of a runaway teenager? Andrey Zvyagintsev's fifth feature was winner of the Jury Prize when it premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Elena Hazanov : 2015
Sindrom Petrushki

Since early childhood Petya has been obsessed with the world of puppets, but his greater obsession is with a girl named Liza. He crafts his perfect woman out of her. But Liza is a real woman. She'd never submit to him completely. Their love is tested in the most brutal way – by the death of their son born with a severe genetic disease nicknamed Happy Puppet Syndrome. As Liza suffers, Petya creates himself a new muse – a sophisticated doll, Alice, a hauntingly identical copy of Liza. Petya has to make a choice: Liza or Alice? Life or art? Petya matches his talent against Fate, and wins his own happiness. Elena Hazanov's feature premiered in competition at Kinotavr Open Russian Film Festival 2015, and screened at Tbilisi International Film Festival 2015.

Viktor Dement : 2015
The Find

In the forgotten taiga village lives Trofim Rusanov, a gloomy and unsociable senior fishery control inspector. He considers all people around him are criminals and is unforgiving of even a slightest deviation from fishing rules and norms of humanity. He is used to the fact that each day is filled with routine. But one day, during his usual route Trofim gets into conflict with a local fishermen and loses his boat. On his 20km way home around the huge lake he finds an abandoned baby in a hunter's lodge. For several days he wanders around the severe uninhabited taiga, fighting both for his life and the life of the little child. Finally, Trofim finds his way home. He wants to trace the woman who left the baby in the forest. But this long quest leads him to another, completely different find – and maybe for the first time in his life Trofim feels compassion. Viktor Dement's feature debut was winner of the prize for Best Cinematography when it premiered at Kinotavr Open Russian Film Festival 2015, and had its international premiere in competition at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2015.

Nicola Bellucci : 2015

Grozny, the capital of war-torn Chechnya, where daily life is defined by political repression, constricting customs, forced Islamification and the failure to come to terms with recent history. The film revolves around four women who have been fighting for human rights under worsening conditions for many years but get more and more disillusioned with the situation in Putin's Russia. The building where they work is also home to a Blues Club that is frequented by a group of young people. Having only vague memories of the Chechen wars in the 1990s, they try to make sense of the strange things that are happening in their country. In linking the personal and intimate to the political, the director shows in a dramatic and yet very poetic way what it means to live in a divided society that navigates a no-man's land between war and peace, repression and freedom, archaic traditions and modern life. Nicola Bellucci's feature-length documentary premiered in competition at Visions du Réel 2015.

Arnaud Desplechin : 2015
My Golden Days

Paul Dédalus is about to leave Tadzhikistan. He remembers... His childhood in Roubaix... His mother's insane outbursts... The bond between himself and his younger brother, Ivan, a pious and violent child... He remembers... When he was sixteen... His father, an inconsolable widower... This journey to the USSR on a clandestine mission, which led him to offer his own identity to a young Russian man... He remembers when he was nineteen, his sister Delphine, his cousin Bob, the wild nights with Pénélope, Mehdi, and Kovalki, the friend who had to betray him... His studies in Paris, his encounter with Dr Béhanzin, his blossoming vocation for anthropology... And above all, Paul remembers Esther. She was the love of his life, she was "a fanatical sweetheart". Arnaud Desplechin's feature was winner of the SACD Prize when it premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2015.

Jonathan Taieb : 2014
Противостояние

Anton and Vlad are a Russian couple, living comfortably in the privacy of their Moscow apartment. One day, after taking a wrong turn in their car, they witness a vicious homophobic attack, but do not act to help. This incident changes the rest of their lives when Anton, consumed by his feelings of guilt, becomes obsessed with the case. For Anton, the burden of what they may have witnessed outweighs Vlad's fear of probing too deeply into the incident. Convinced of the police's indifference, Anton talks his sceptical boyfriend into launching their own amateur investigation into the hate crime. But as Anton gets closer to the perpetrators, the abyss between him and Vlad widens and their risky search for the truth will have unexpected and grim consequences. This highly topical and powerful slow-burning suspense drama sets one person's struggle for justice against the paralysing power of fear. Jonathan Taieb's second feature premiered at Frameline Film Festival 2014, and was winner of the award for Best Feature Film at Serile Filmului Gay International Film Festival 2014.

Andrei Zaitsev : 2015

Alex glides his mouse tenderly over online images of Vika. He has been smitten ever since he saw her with her friends and cannot get her out of his head. Now he has found Vika's profile online and has learned a lot about her. Vika has no idea about any of this. She is beyond Alex's reach because her school and block of flats are enemy territory for him. Alex nonetheless sneaks into a disco at her school and plucks up the courage to ask her to dance. Incensed by the intruder, the other boys give Alex a beating. As bad as it was, the good thing is that, upset by what has happened, Vika gets in touch with Alex and tentatively reciprocates his feelings. Their secret trysts give them a chance to get close, haltingly at first, for every gesture, sentence and touch is new and exciting to them. They are afraid to do something wrong and yet everything they do is right. A turbulent, moving tale of first love set in a vast suburban conglomeration of tower blocks. Andrei Zaitsev's second feature premiered in the Generation 14plus section at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Ella Manzheeva : 2015
The Gulls

Elza lives in a small town in the Republic of Kalmykia on the Caspian Sea. Another year comes to an end, it's cold and the steppe is covered in a thin layer of snow. When her husband, who makes a living from illegal fishing, asks her one night what she did during the day, she lies. She wasn't at her mother's, but at the bus stop. She thought of leaving – to find out what it might be to escape the infinite expanse of her dreary small world. But she didn't dare; instead she stays and withdraws into herself, unconcerned by who might see. One day, her husband doesn't return from a dangerous boat trip. It is said that a fisherman only returns if he has a woman waiting for him and that seagulls are the souls of the missing. At the start of a somewhat unplanned pregnancy, widowed and alone, Elza wanders ever further through the city, plotting a path between tradition and the contemporary until she's no longer on familiar ground. Ella Manzheeva's feature debut premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Kirill Sakharnov : 2014

With two members of the political punk band Pussy Riot in prison and the Russian parliament adopting controversial anti-gay legislation, we follow enthusiastic twenty-something Olya in her unstinting struggle for equal rights for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people. She organises exhibitions and coming-out events and demonstrates actively on the streets, often right on the front line between demonstrators, riot police and opponents. The film's home-video style underlines the personal nature of this highly politicised issue. Olya learns to use the camera herself so she can film in the intimacy of her apartment – while Galiya, her girlfriend, is fitting a wall socket or they are talking with friends about having children. This private footage is interspersed with material shot by an external cameraman – often rough material from the street, just when something is happening: beatings not only during the demonstrations in front of the Duma, but also on the escalator in the metro, where women are attacked by members of an anti-gay group. By letting the camera into her life, Olya shows us what the price of standing up for your sexuality is in today's Russia. Kirill Sakharnov's first feature-length documentary premiered at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2014, and screened at Riga International Film Festival 2014.

Aleksandr Kott : 2014
Ispytanie

In a modest house in the midst of the Kazakh steppe lives Tolgat and his gentle, beautiful daughter, Dinara. When he sets off for work she is left behind, and in the evenings she takes care of her weary father. They live a quiet life in the vast plain until two young men fall for the girl. This love triangle will lead to a wholly unexpected turn of events. In August 1953, Muscovite Maxim Smirnov, an assistant cameraman, travels to Semipalatinsk as part of a film crew with a secret mission. Here, in the open spaces of the steppe, he encounters his first love, the young Dinara. Celebrating the simplicity of a secluded life, the film's imagery gently follows the change of seasons, but amidst these idyllic scenes, the signs of Soviet interference appear with the visit of a Russian patrol. The girl discovers a barbed wire fence, which hides a forbidden zone in the middle of the desert. The young people do not know that very soon they will be at the epicentre of events which will forever change not only their lives, but also those of mankind. Here, in Semipalatinsk, in this hot summer, the test of the first hydrogen bomb will take place. A visually stunning and poetic work, shedding light on a dark chapter of Soviet military history. Aleksandr Kott's feature was winner of the Grand Prix and the prize for Best Cinematography when it premiered at Kinotavr Open Russian Film Festival 2014, and was named Best International Feature at Altın Portakal Film Festival 2014.

Pavel Loparev & Askold Kurov : 2014
Дети 404

In 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin passed a bill forbidding the "promotion of non-traditional sexual relations to minors". LGBT youth, now defenceless against insults and intimidation under this "gay propaganda" law, are considered sick, sinful and abnormal. Psychologists, teachers and even parents can be fined or imprisoned for supporting them. Forty-five Russian teens and tweens share their stories through anonymous interviews and video diaries. They detail their humiliations and discriminations, as well as their courageous stands against bullies. Their testimonies are collected online as the Children 404 project, named after the common "error 404 - page not found" web message. The support group's founder struggles within the system to bring public attention and empathy to the victims of this government-endorsed hate, while activist Pasha decides he must leave his homeland altogether if he hopes to find a boyfriend and lead a normal life. Has a new Stone Age arrived in Russia? Pavel Loparev and Askold Kurov's documentary premiered at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival 2014.

Martti Helde : 2014
Risttuules

On the night of 14 June 1941, over 40,000 inhabitants of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia – identified as "anti-Soviet elements" by the USSR, which had annexed the Baltic states the previous year – were forced on to trains and sent to the remotest outposts of Siberia. Among them is a philosophy student Erna, a happily married mother of a little girl, Eliide. Separated from her husband, Erna and her daughter are dispatched together with other women and children to remote Siberian territories. Despite hunger, fear and brutal humiliation, Erna never in the next fifteen years loses her sense of freedom and hope of returning to her homeland. Drawing from the diary kept by the real-life Erna throughout her displacement, the film meticulously reconstructs one survivor's story to create a delicate, powerfully moving memorial to all the victims of this massive and often-overlooked tragedy. Martti Helde's feature debut received its international premiere at Toronto International Film Festival 2014, and was winner of the Ecumenical Jury Award at Warsaw Film Festival 2014.