Don’t miss this scin­til­lat­ing sur­vey of the best new Russ­ian cinema

Russ­ian cin­e­mat­ic out­put has, in the new cen­tu­ry, gift­ed the inter­na­tion­al scene with raw and inno­v­a­tive mas­ter­works span­ning var­i­ous gen­res. This year’s Russ­ian Film Fes­ti­val (RFF), organ­ised by ROSKI­NO and with the sup­port of the Russ­ian Federation’s Min­istry of Cul­ture, pulls back the vir­tu­al cur­tain to reveal a new gen­er­a­tion of Russ­ian tal­ent who, on this evi­dence, blend cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal her­itage with fresh perspectives.

Ten new Russ­ian films have arrived on UK shores and are avail­able for home view­ing until 10 Decem­ber on BFI Play­er. The fes­ti­val sig­nals a new era for the Russ­ian film indus­try, allow­ing cinephiles around the world to enjoy a pro­gramme packed with inno­v­a­tive con­tem­po­rary works that offer a glimpse into the country’s cul­tur­al essence and cur­rent condition.

This year’s slate of films is large­ly dom­i­nat­ed by dra­mas which tack­le sub­jects such as crime, war and tumul­tuous recent polit­i­cal his­to­ry, with biopics and doc­u­men­taries on cre­ative minds also in the mix as well. It’s a pro­gramme which seeks to chal­lenge pre­con­cep­tions about what we expect to see in Russ­ian cin­e­ma, mak­ing the case for the fact that for­mal exper­i­men­ta­tion is hap­pen­ing at both ends of the com­mer­cial spectrum.

Ven­er­at­ed as the jew­el of this year’s selec­tion, Anas­tasiya Palchikova’s dark and twist­ed Masha fol­lows a mob sto­ry seen through the eyes of its 13-year old lead. Her world is unex­pect­ed­ly crushed as she realis­es that the peo­ple she’s been sur­round­ed by are not who she thought they were. Fam­i­ly ties, inde­pen­dence and dis­con­nec­tion are also explored in Alexan­dr Molochnikov’s semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal dra­ma Tell Her, in which an 11-year old boy strug­gles to adapt to a new home after being emo­tion­al­ly caught in between his par­ents’ abu­sive rela­tion­ship and impend­ing divorce.

Russia’s answer to the pierc­ing and rel­e­vant his­tor­i­cal dra­ma is to be found in The Sto­ry of an Appoint­ment, a heart­break­ing film based on true events. Leo Tol­stoy, the renowned author of ​‘War and Peace’, is caught up in the com­plex­i­ties of stick­ing to his ideals by help­ing an inno­cent sol­dier avoid exe­cu­tion for a crime he is wrong­ful­ly accused of.

A black and white recre­ation of the longest siege in mod­ern his­to­ry is the back­bone of melo­dra­ma A Siege Diary, a visu­al­ly painstak­ing recre­ation of the longest siege in mod­ern his­to­ry which swept sev­er­al awards across film fes­ti­vals. Anoth­er crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed dra­ma is Con­science, set in 1920s Pet­ro­grad, which fol­lows a man who starts to inves­ti­gate his brother’s death but ends up entan­gled in com­pli­cat­ed police mysteries.

Inspired by Mikhail Zoshchenko’s auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal novel­la ​‘Before Sun­rise’, the award-win­ning The Last ​‘Dear Bul­gar­ia’ offers up a psy­cho­an­a­lyt­i­cal web of ref­er­ences which includes Eisenstein’s Ivan the Ter­ri­ble. Direc­tor Alek­sey Fedorchenko, best known in the UK for his excel­lent 2010 film Silent Souls, bal­ances scenes of apple orchards with melan­choly, cin­e­ma and a crime in Almaty, a remote town that becomes the unlike­ly epi­cen­tre of the story.

Against the back­drop of a col­laps­ing USSR, Mikhail Idov’s direc­to­r­i­al debut The Humorist sees a Russ­ian-Jew­ish stand-up come­di­an tor­ment­ed by inse­cu­ri­ty as much as state cen­sor­ship. In Valery Todorovsky’s Bol­shoi, how­ev­er, inse­cu­ri­ty is not a word in Yuliya’s vocab­u­lary. Her unwa­ver­ing deter­mi­na­tion to become a prime bal­le­ri­na and per­form at the Bol­shoi The­atre forces her to dance her way to the top.

The lega­cy of one of Russia’s most promi­nent human­i­tar­i­an work­ers and activists is cement­ed in Oksana Karas’ biopic Doc­tor Liza, styled as a day in the life of Eliza­ve­ta Glin­ka. Final­ly, a por­trait of the Russ­ian stage titan whose sem­i­nal sys­tem marked a huge rev­e­la­tion in the world of act­ing, is thor­ough­ly delin­eat­ed in Julia Bobkova’s Stanislavs­ki, Lust for Life. The deep dive into Stanislavski’s work is con­tex­tu­alised by the­atre and film direc­tors, the likes of which include Katie Mitchell and Delan Don­nel­lan. All of these titles are avail­able to view now for youer own home Russ­ian movie marathon.

Sub­scribe to BFI Play­er with code RFF21 for an extend­ed free trial.