Best Russian Indie Movies - Profound & Touching
Movies like Leviathan, Russian indie movies you probably never heard of, with profound messages, touching stories, breathtaking filmography, odd, quirky but non the less brilliant works of art.
List activity
2K views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
8 titles
- DirectorAndrey ZvyagintsevStarsAleksey SerebryakovElena LyadovaRoman MadyanovIn a Russian coastal town, Kolya is forced to fight the corrupt mayor when he is told that his house will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help, but the man's arrival brings further misfortune for Kolya and his family.
- DirectorAlexei PopogrebskyStarsGrigoriy DobryginSergey PuskepalisIgor ChernevichOne place. One day. Two men. The place is a polar research station on an island in the Arctic Ocean, inhabited now only by Sergei and Pavel. One day when Sergei is out angling, Pavel picks up a radio message that he daren't communicate.
- DirectorAndrey KonchalovskiyStarsAleksey TryapitsynIrina ErmolovaTimur BondarenkoThe film represents life in a godforsaken Russian village. The only way to reach the mainland is to cross the lake by boat and a postman became the only connection with the outside world. A reserved community has been set up here. Despite the modern technologies and a spaceport nearby the people of the village live the way they would in the Neolithic Era. There is neither government nor social services or jobs. The postman's beloved woman escapes the village life and moves to the city. Postman's outboard engine gets stolen and he can no longer deliver mail. His normal pattern of life is disrupted. The postman makes a decision to leave for the city too but returns before long with no certain reason. The script is based on real characters' stories. People from the village play their own parts in the film. The search for the protagonist lasted for over a year.
- DirectorBoris KhlebnikovAlexei PopogrebskyStarsGleb PuskepalisIgor ChernevichEvgeniy SytyyA widowed aeronautics engineer, who has lost his job, travels with his son hopping freight trains from Moscow to Koktebel, a town by the Black Sea, to start a new life with the father's sister. After they are stopped by a train guard, they continue their travel on foot. The father battles against his alcohol addiction and the son is fascinated with the idea of flight. One rainy day an old man accepts them in his house in return for the repair of the roof. The father gives in to the alcohol offered by the old man, who in a drunken brawl accuses him of stealing money and shoots him. A young female village doctor takes care of him and a romantic relationship between the two ensues. The father feels reluctant to continue the journey. The son leaves alone and a truck driver gives him a ride to Koktebel. However, his aunt has left for the summer.
- DirectorBoris KhlebnikovStarsAleksandr YatsenkoEvgeniy SytyyPyotr Zaychenko"Free Floating" is a melodrama with elements of comedy about a young lad from an ordinary provincial town like many in Russia, with just one kindergarten, one school, one factory. As a result, one grows up here never facing the alternative as to what to choose, for everything is preordained. Leonid is an ordinary lad who, like his peers, goes to discos, dances with girls and picks fights with the local riff-raff later. Everything is going well for him, as his life is totally predictable. But one day the factory closes down and he becomes disoriented. For the first time ever, he is to make a choice on his own and think seriously about what he would like to do... His life begins to develop as he encounters a chain of different people. Leonid starts looking for a job and finds several without much effort, each apparently promising and offering a world of its own. But for different, seemingly haphazard, reasons Leonid won't stick to any job he seems initially attracted to. He only stays as an apprentice in a brigade of road workers, as the brigade-leader Roslov seems an affable and even extraordinary man. Yet, the idol turns out to be a virtuoso crook who cons everybody around him and does not shy away from stealing and doing illegal business. Leonid tries to oppose this semi-criminal, proving himself a hero. To punish him, Roslov and his brigade beat him within an inch of his life. And he loses yet another job... Leonid's search for his life's work is combined with his first love. He comes across his former classmate nicknamed Piggy, and the first romance in their lives flares up - and flickers out in the sudden coming of autumn. Summer, love, and job are all gone, and Leonid is almost in despair. But one day a quaint barge with wheels and a drive from an old tractor turns up out of nowhere and takes Leonid away from this town. Here on board of this homemade tub he works for peanuts by the riverside but he has finally succeeded in finding his life's work and acquiring real friends.
- DirectorAleksey BalabanovStarsAleksandr MosinOleg GarkushaYuriy MatveevSanja the Bandit after a particularly vicious shootout, stumbles into the musician Oleg at the local banya. Following a retelling of a semi-mythological story, the pair decide to make a pilgrimage to a "bell-tower of happiness".
- DirectorVasiliy SigarevStarsOlga LapshinaMarina GavrilovaSasha GavrilovaThe heroes of the film are not ready to put up with their losses. They challenge fate, declare war on it and reach the human limit in it. And they go on, winning in their own way .spoiler.. depressing movie.
- DirectorAleksandr ZeldovichStarsIngeborga DapkunaiteTatyana DrubichNatalya KolyakanovaThe film centres on Mike, a businessman in decidedly the new Russian mould. When Mike gets stung on a deal, his suspicions immediately fall on Lev, who receives the customary torture to make him reveal where the money has gone.