First part of the Decisive Engagement trilogy. Directed by Pingfen Li et al.
Category: History
History
-
Assassin of the Tsar
A new doctor from Moscow arrives at a provincial mental institution. His interest is the peculiarities of the psyche of a patient who believes that he is Yakov Yurovsky, the man who assassinated the last Russian tsar. In the course of their conversations it transpires that the patient is a kind of philosopher, not without a gift for suggestion. In a while the doctor himself falls under his patient’s influence: he tends to relive that fatal night of June 16-17, 1918 when, without any investigation or trial, Tsar Nicholas II, who had recently abdicated, was murdered, together with his wife, daughters and incurably ill heir. Soon the doctor realizes that the tragedy of the last Russian tsar is in part his own tragedy, too…
-
Becoming Colette
French writer recalls her start as the country wife of a Paris publisher who called her erotic work his own.
-
Not Afraid to Die
The tragic story of a Russian family forced to make life and death decisions during the Stalinist purges.
-
Decisive Engagement: The Huai-hai Campaign
Winner of the Golden Rooster for Best Film in 1992
-
Time of Darkness
In Middle-Age Russia, a christian preacher arrives, proposing a new order. He threatens those who take part in a pagan festival with the flames of hell. But when strange crimes start to happen, local leaders decide to investigate.
-
Tsar Ivan the Terrible
Adaptation of ‘Prince Serebrenni’ by A. K. Tolstoy.
-
Nikolay Vavilov
Biopic devoted to the history of the life of Soviet biologist, academician Nikolai Vavilov. His scientific and personal confrontation with Trofim Lysenko, the subsequent arrest and death of the scientist in prison.
-
The King of Colonnades
In May 1945, a broken violinist lies drunk by a creek, haunted by memories of his life before and during WWII. Once the celebrated first violin in spa orchestras, he married Jewish nurse Róza and dreamed of fatherhood, only to face brutal anti-Jewish persecution. Relegated to second violin, he spirals into alcoholism and betrayal, while Róza and their daughter are deported. Cast out by colleagues and lovers, he descends into madness, murdering a vagrant with his violin case. In a final psychotic haze, he tends a roadside Christ statue before collapsing, his shattered life a testament to love, loss, and atrocity.