Russian Documentary Movies

This city is no longer on the map. In the 30-40s of the twentieth century, during the construction of the Rybinsk reservoir, seven hundred villages, one hundred and forty churches and monasteries, the ancient Russian city of Mologa went under water. An area of 4,600 kilometers was flooded. The deceased city carried away a secret that has not been solved so far.

Khodorkovsky, the richest Russian, challenges President Putin. A fight of the titans begins. Putin warns him. But Khodorkovsky comes back to Russia knowing that he will be imprisoned, once he returns. When I heard about it, I asked myself: why didn't he stay in exile with a couple of billions? Why did he do that? A personal journey to Khodorkovsky.

The true history of Japanese Unit 731, from its beginnings in the 1930s to its demise in 1945, and the subsequent trials in Khabarovsk, USSR, of many of the Japanese doctors from Unit 731. The facts are told, and previously unknown evidence is revealed by an eyewitness to these events, former doctor and military translator, Anatoly Protasov.

The mother and daughter face the question of whether to keep the pregnancy or terminate it. Both are under pressure from relatives, friends, and doctors. Both are going through a difficult decision-making process. Each episode of the artistic part shows the life circumstances and the path that a woman in a crisis situation goes through. In documentary inserts, representatives of various professions (psychologists, lawyers, gynecologists, clergymen) tell how they face the problem of abortion in their lives.

Three young women, who each have a sought-after commodity - their virginity. Kristina, Karina and Katya each try to make their way in a world ruled by fame, popularity and money.

Baikal is the oldest, the deepest and the purest lake on the planet. But it's not only that - Baikal is an ideal model of our world, as it shall be. Everything is possible here: to walk on water, to touch the sky, to talk with the universe. Baikal is our hope and our future. It's a film about the thirst, about the eternity and about all of us. The genre is epic documentary. The aim is to change the world.

The soulless atmosphere of a women's penitentiary destroys the prisoners' personality, kills all femininity in them. The film looks at the rationality of the long prison terms for women with children.

Artem loves Yulia, Yulia loves Artem. They recently graduated from school, moved to Moscow and began an independent life. In search of part-time jobs, Artem comes up with the idea of creating another image from Yulia - Eva Elfie - and making an amateur video for Pornhub. Suddenly, the video becomes popular, Eva gets more and more job offers, and Artem becomes the boyfriend and producer of a world celebrity. The heroes seem to fall into the "American dream", but in their personal lives there are more and more problems and doubts.

Spring is a time of love, lightness and endorphins. But the spring of 2020 turned out to be very different, isolating us from each other. The Vesna project tells 14 stories about people who, like all of us, found themselves in quarantine, but were able to learn something important and valuable from this experience. Moscow promoter Andrey Algorithmik, who self-isolated himself in the Powerhouse club he founded; Tbilisi gallerist Giorgi Rodionov, who started recording a podcast about dreams; sex blogger Alina Shikut, who launched an online course about accepting your body; a Director who went to a remote village, and a famous photographer who takes pictures of empty Moscow-14 documentary sketches add up to a General portrait of an optimist in quarantine: after all, spring is also a time of renewal.

The documentary film dedicated to the life of Nicholas II and his family was edited from chronicle of 1896-1916 from the funds of The Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive.

A brilliant observational documentary filmed at the Civil Registry office in St. Petersburg, where people come to have births, marriages, divorces and deaths registered. 'It’s like a theatre here', one says in the beginning of the film, and it indeed is, the Theater of Life. The young women working in the office have a job that shifts from being verbally attacked and called idiots, to situations where they are subject to flirt, or where they master the happy ceremony of marriage. Faces, joy, sorrow, fun, despair... It’s all very well composed, rhythmical, with atmosphere conveyed, and lives up to what a documentary should be: multilayered and universal. And about Life.

After the war began, memorial plaques bearing the names of victims of repression started being torn down far more often than before. The Last Address project didn’t have the resources to keep up with the vandalism. A group of activists stepped in: they began making temporary cardboard plaques and set out to track down those responsible.

A documentary film made for the 50th birthday of Boris Nemtsov, shown in a small circle of friends during the holiday.

No overview available

Born in the USSR: 21 Up follows the lives of people who grew up in the Soviet Union. They give an insight into Russian life today, aged 21.

A film about the creation of the Moscow Metro, which has become a symbol of the whole country. The narrative covers the period from the first pre-revolutionary projects to the Khrushchev era.

Director Nikita Mikhalkov documents the history of Russia from 1980 to 1991 by annually asking his daughter Anna such questions as "What do you love the most?", "What scares you the most?", "What do you want above anything" and "What do you hate the most?"

A documentary-fiction hybrid film based on the works of Joseph Brodsky.

The documentary tells about the Romanov family. It discusses versions about the possible salvation of the imperial family, tells about impostors who consider themselves descendants of Nicholas II, and the film also touches on the fate of the regicides.

A unique project, the popular science series "Bread" is shooting around the world, interviews with scientists and world-class experts. There are 4 series in the project: "Immortality", "Money", "Hunger" and "Gene". This is a story about how bread controlled the destinies of continents and empires, how the rise of some civilizations and the fall of others depended on it, how in different countries and at different times it performed the function of money. This is the first time such a complete study of bread and grain is being carried out on a television screen. The focus is on the most interesting events in the history of Russia, Italy, France, Germany, England, China, Egypt and other countries.

Аlina Makarova is a mother of six of her own children and one adopted child. Her ex husband is from Ethiopia, and all her own children are mixed race. Only her adopted son is white, but he has serious health problems and is psychologically unstable. Alina's older children realise what complications the adoption might bring and are afraid that there won't be enough room, time and love for everyone. But she convinces them that it's the right thing.

The epic story of the Russian Civil War (1918-21): the White Terror, the counterrevolutionary uprisings, the guerrilla war, the Kolchak front, the Wrangel front and the Kronstadt rebellion. Chaos and violence, devastation and death.

Born in the USSR:14 Up follows the lives of people who grew up in the Soviet Union. They give an insight into Russian life.

Everything that matters to Sergei Dovlatov, one way or another written by the writer Sergei Dovlatov. From fragments of works, letters, interviews, editorial columns, a story about a living person is compiled.

WishMaster, Clever Lil, New, Skunk, Fox, Foxy, CatÖ this is a group of people who reckon that their invented life is much more important and real than what their birth held in store for them. They practice a sado-masochism, creating around their passions the romantic image of another world visible only to them. From the position of ordinary citizens they are no more than perverts with mental deviations. And still, who are they? How do they survive in a world that they call ìvanillaî? And why do they use these strange nicknames and carefully chosen, ominous attributes: flogging scourges or latex suits? What do they see in their hobby that we do not see ñ and never shall see, if we limit ourselves by a documentary approach?

Born in the USSR: 28 Up follows the lives of people who grew up in the Soviet Union. They give an insight into Russian life today, aged 28.

The rich inner world of famous Georgian theater and film director, artist and puppeteer Rezo Gabriadze is as fantastic as the animation into which he has poured this story of his life. Rezo’s director son Levan "Leo" Gabriadze, who previously made the horror film Unfriended (2014), leaves it to his father to talk about a life suffused with magical thinking.

A documentary about the Soviet rock group Kino which mixes music video sequences, footage from the band members' day to day lives, interviews and concert footage.

A poetic view of Russian animation and of cultural and social transformations Russian society has been gone through. It is about multi faceted and humorous animation, almost never exposed to western eyes.

Once upon a time in Russia, communism fell and Rock 'n' Roll rose to power. One band reigned supreme and toured far and wide across the eastern earth, but never even left Russia - until now. They only have once chance, to not only rule Russia -but to become the best band in the West. The strategy is simple - get on the boat, create an album - and make new friends. All with hopes of finally becoming a household name in the United States. But sometimes fame is harder than just toppling a government.

The plot revolves around the rehearsal of the play “Excitement” in which Freindlikh is to play a famous American writer from New York. The actress and director have heated debates about the eccentric character. They discuss the process of creation, its mysterious mechanisms, the birth of a work of art in general. They also talk about the world around Alisa outside the theatre – her family, home, friends, interests and her beloved St. Petersburg. The film is meant to commemorate the great Russian actress’s 85th anniversary.

About an actress who does not play, but through a documentary film tries to dot the rest of her life.

This is a chronicle of several days in the lives of people who made a huge contribution to the main event of 2014 with their own hands. Ice pouring specialists, Olympic medal makers, builders, engineers, border guards, metallurgists, doctors, volunteers — they will all talk about how the Sochi Olympics came to be a reality.

Summer 1991. The last days of the Soviet Empire. Dark clouds gathered over Moscow as the Soviet government prepared to turn back the clock of history. While the world focused on the crashing Soviet Empire, this film focuses on the people who would've been among the first to suffer repression - the women and men who have broken sexual taboos in a consummate act of liberation against a rigid, crippled world. This is a view from their vantage point, unveiling the shadow-side of Soviet culture in the wake of the revolution, where the real provocative nudity is the nakedness of the soul.

Love is spontaneous, illogical, and immaterial. Modern science, studying the nature of this phenomenon, has discovered fantastic changes in the brains of people in love - love suppresses the feeling of fear, negative emotions, and criticism. Why does a person in love have an increased pulse and breathing rate? Biologists' research indicates that love is like drug intoxication. Chemists claim that we feel love due to the release of certain hormones into the blood. However, both admit that Love cannot be explained only by science.

Timur Novikov: Zero Object positions the late artist Timur Novikov as protagonist in this exploration of underground art from St Petersburg. As well as providing a historical overview of the 1980s-1990s, the film features iconic figures in St Petersburg’s underground scene: cult rocker Victor Tsoi, and artists Georgy Guryanov, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe and Sergey ‘Africa’ Bugaev, among others. From beginning to end, it’s a manifesto for personal and artistic freedom in a forbidding political climate.

The documentary project The Term was conceived in May 2012. When the directing trio commenced mapping the Russian sociopolitical landscape, Vladimir Putin had just settled into the Kremlin for his third term. The original experimental format of “documentary bulletins,” which were published daily online, allowed for wide-ranging content; in the feature film version, however, the filmmakers focused solely on the members of various opposition groups. Nevertheless, the work’s neutral position remains and viewers have to interpret the objectively presented situations for themselves. The main characteristics of this strongly authentic movie include close contact with the protagonists, precise editing, and an effectively controlled release of information.

Alexey is shooting a movie about himself. He is in search of a boyfriend. Everything would be alright, if Alexey's mother could accept his sexuality. Alexey comes to visit her and admits that he likes boys, saying 'Don't you anticipate any grandchildren from me'. We find Alexey at Tarkovsky film festival, where he apparently came to rest. Alexey meets Grisha, and a stormy holiday romance begins.

A documentary highlighting the Soviet Union's legendary and enigmatic hockey training culture and world-dominating team through the eyes of the team's Captain Slava Fetisov, following his shift from hockey star and celebrated national hero to political enemy.

The film is about the long-term relationship between the director and the character of her first film, the French indie artist, musician and director Siegfried, known as Sig. The story is dedicated to the experience of growing up, emancipation and finding their own identity in life and in art. The film raises questions about the nature of the student-teacher relationship, which inevitably involves submission and conflict, and the nature of the director and hero relationship, which is based on love and a little manipulation.