Svetlana Obidina

A White White Night

A detective film with some serious depth. Called back from Moscow on a search for a missing person, this is a story of a man forced to plunge into the past, reminded at every turn of the previous life he led in Saint Petersburg. He must come to terms with the present to move forward - and on top of it all, he's not even sure he's awake. The over-arching presence of St Petersburg, sometimes benign, sometimes threatening, bears witness to his journey.

White Lilacs

From his childhood in Russia to his last days in California, the tumultuous ininerary and bathed in melancholy of the legendary pianist and composer Serguei Rachmaninov. This film is based on the legend that Rachmaninoff received a bouquet of lilacs from an unknown admirer after every performance. He emigrated to the United States, and after an interval, began to receive the mysterious lilacs again.

Crime & Punishment

Former student Raskolnikov is pushed to murder when struggling to pay the rent on his apartment. When the murder is being investigated by the police, Raskolnikov struggles between trying to hide his guilt and the pressure to confess.

The Island

Somewhere in Northern Russia in a small Russian Orthodox monastery lives an unusual man whose bizarre conduct confuses his fellow monks, while others who visit the island believe that the man has the power to heal, exorcise demons and foretell the future.

Investigator Tikhonov

The Duelist

Returning to Saint Petersburg after a long exile, the dashing Yakovlev, a retired army officer, makes a comfortable living by winning other people's duels. An enigmatic, focused, and extremely skilled professional, he leaves a trail of dead bodies behind him as he swirls through polite society, frequently called upon to wield a pistol as a surrogate in duels at dawn. But when Yakovlev meets the naïve young Prince Tuchov and his beautiful sister, Princess Martha, the normally cold-hearted mercenary is surprised by hitherto undetected emotions. What transpires uncovers a series of revelations about his past and his present self.

Dovlatov

Dovlatov charts six days in the life of a brilliant, ironic writer who saw far beyond the rigid limits of 70s Soviet Russia. Sergei Dovlatov fought to preserve his own talent and decency with poet and writer Joseph Brodsky, while watching his artist friends got crushed by the iron-willed state machinery.

The Edge

The action takes place shortly after the end of the Second World War in the Siberian hinterland, among Russians and Germans with damaged personal stories and a strange transformation: the victors seem to be crawling into the skins of the defeated, and vice versa. Ignat, is the embodiment of the larger-than-life image of the Soviet victorious warrior who, in fact, proves to be shell-shocked, sick and broken, although not completely destroyed. Trains become fetish for the heroes of the film, and speed becomes a mania; they virtually become one with their steam engines, while the machines take on human names. The heroes set up an almost fatal race in the Siberian forest, risking their own lives and those of others.

The Dry Valley

This story unites the destinies of the landowners and their servants, and is considered to be one of the most complete portraits of the Russian life in the late XIX century. It takes place in Dry Valley, a village owned by the noble family of Khrushevs. The story tells about Natalia, a young and naive girl who serves in their country house. We see and experience her love, dedication to her masters, mysticism, exile, betrayal and faith, while the Dry Valley is falling to pieces, slowly but inevitably, as well as the lives of its inhabitants.

Unwanted

A 15-year old Vika has to grow up. Only yesterday she was just a teenager and now she’s a mom. Catching sidelong scowls of adults, being mocked by peers, unbearable responsibility – it seems like the entire world is against her and Vika is all by herself. More truly, she has a child now, she’s not all alone.