The 11th Annual Russian Film Week is back in New York with new and interesting movies. From Oct. 28 to Nov. 4, a collection of modern Russian films will be displayed at the Village East Cinema.
The film-filled week will open with Slava Ross’s movie “Siberia, Monamour.” The movie guides viewers through the Siberian wilderness, the plot revolving around a little boy and his grandfather. They are both isolated in an abandoned village, waiting for the boy’s missing father to come back home.
The movie has been described as “original and strikingly beautiful” by Katie Metcalfe, the curator of Russian Film Week, in a press release. It’s not just the good reviews that make this movie an interesting choice to start off the event. The film was also co-produced by famed French producer and director Luc Besson (“The Professional”).
The film program contains a mix of contemporary Russian films with a variety of genres and themes. A number of the movies are dramas laced with an ironic sense of humor, such as Avdotia Smirnova’s “Two Days” (“Dva Dnya”), a movie about a Moscow official who falls for a young girl working at a museum. Unfortunately it is the very same museum that he’s supposed to shut down.
There are also thrillers, comedies, and art-house projects thrown into the mix.
The common thread throughout the entire film program is bringing a distinct flavor of Russia to New York. There are representations of the small towns in the countryside, the woods of Siberia, and of course Moscow.
Semi-autobiographical drama “My Father Baryshnikov,” by Dmitry Povolotsky, shows us the capital in 1986. We see this through the eyes of a young boy who is determined to become a skilled ballet dancer while pretending that he is the son of famous dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Oleg Flyangolts’s artsy drama “Indifference” was actually originally filmed in 1989. Now completed 20 years later, it still carries the feeling of the past.
If reminiscing is not your style, don’t worry. The Russian Film Week still has you covered with a movie that puts time on fast forward instead of looking back. The Russia of 2020 is the scene of Alexander Zeldovich’s sci-fi thriller “The Target,” where the plot centers around wealthy people trying to get hold of what money cannot buy them—youth.
With all these movies and more, the week is sure to teach you one or two things about Russian cinema that you didn’t know before. And as if this were not enough to tame hungry film-lovers, the event is filled with panel discussions, classes, conferences, and networking events.
For information on film-screening schedules, tickets, and events, please visit www.russianfilmweeknyc.com.
