Sergei Garmash Movies
- 2008
The Russian word morfiy translates as morphine, and that baleful drug with the power of seduction stands at the center of this period drama. Set in 1916, it tells of a young provincial physician, Dr. Mikhail Poliakov, who finds himself drawn into the trap of morphine addiction. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leonid Bichevin, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, (more)
- 2007
A gambler learns the hard way that you can con a con man in this period comedy adapted from a story by Nikolai Gogol. Luciano (Giuliano di Capua) is a smooth-talking Italian card shark who finds he's not welcome among the upper crust at home when he's unable to pay his gambling debts. Sneaking into Russia, Luciano is looking to make some fast money and thinks he's found a jackpot when he ends up in a card game with three men (Sergei Garmash, Sergei Makovetsky and Andrei Merzlikin) from a small village in the steppes. Luciano is smart enough to realize that his would-be victims know a thing or two about cards, and when they propose he join them for a confidence game in which the mark is a wealthy salesman, he's more than willing to sign on. However, while Luciano still imagines his new partners are half-bright rubes, the Russians are willingly living up to every negative stereotype about the peasant class in order to get the best of the unsuspecting gambler. Russkaya Igra (aka The Russian Game) received its American premiere at the 2007 New York Russian Film Week Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sergei Garmash, Sergei Makovetsky, (more)
- 2004
A family is confronted with an unexpected and troubling new arrival in this emotional drama from Russia. Yulik Krymov (Leonid Yarmolnik) is a scientist and author who shares his home with his wife Rita (Yelena Yakovleva) and their two children, Anya (Marianna Ilyina) and Igor (Artyom Shalimov). Their domestic calm is shattered one day when Yulik discovers he has a third child he never knew about -- Pavel (Daniil Spivakovsky), the product of a long-forgotten one-night stand 20 years ago. Pavel has recently arrived home after suffering severe injuries as a Russian soldier fighting in Chechnya; his mother can no longer care for him, and has decided it is Yulik's turn to mind his son. Physically scarred and emotionally ravaged, Pavel is hardly a comforting presence, and Igor makes no secret of his fear and distrust of the new arrival, but his younger sister, Anya, has a kinder heart and befriends the shattered soul. To Rita, however, Pavel is a reminder of Yulik's decades-old infidelity, and his presence drives a wedge between her and her husband. Meanwhile, Pavel's need for expensive surgery, his powerful delusions that Chechnyan soldiers are hiding in the attic, and his insistence that his best friend will be coming to visit soon add up to far more than the family is able to deal with. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leonid Yarmolnik, Yelena Yakovleva, (more)
- 2004
The Nika Award winner or Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Sound, Best Cinematography, and Best Screenplay, director Dimitri Meskhiyev's unforgiving war drama follows the plight of three German detention camp escapees who seek refuge in a small village while attempting to reveal the trader in their ranks. August, 1941: The Nazis are advancing on the Eastern front as three Russian soldiers seize an opportunity for escape. Former security officer Tolya (Sergei Garmash), Jewish politico Lifshits (Konstantin Khabensky), and sure shot sniper Mitya (Mikhail Evlanov) were being marched to a detention camp when they made a break from the group to try their luck in the countryside. What better place to seek shelter than on the property of Mitya's father Ivan (Bogdan Stupka)? It would have been the perfect plan, if it weren't for the fact that Ivan is a staunch anti-Soviet in collaboration with the German occupying forces. Unable to turn away his own son, Ivan reluctantly takes in the trio, only to incur the wrath of the local police captain (Fedor Bondarchuk), who promptly arrests Ivan's daughters and demands the soldiers' surrender as ransom. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bogdan Stupka, Konstantin Khabensky, (more)
- 2003
Russian film producer Fyodor Popov makes his directorial debut with the tense psychological drama Kavkazskaya Rulyetka (Caucasian Roulette). Set on a train, the story involves two travelers on opposing sides of the war-torn country: Anna (Tatyana Meshcherkina) is an assassin on the side of the Chechen rebels and Maria (Nina Usatova) is the mother of a captured Federation soldier. In order to get her own son back, Maria plots to capture Anna's infant son with hopes of making a trade-off. Meanwhile, Kolya (Anatoly Goryachev) is a sleazy war profiteer with no political alliance but his own. Caucasian Roulette was shown at the 2003 Karlovy Vary Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nina Usatova, Tatyana Meshcherkina, (more)
- 2003
Nikolai Stambula's Russian drama Marsh Brosok (The Forced March) tells the story of an orphan who longs to experience the adventure of war. Alexander (Vladimir Volga) and Volodya (Eugene Kosirev) are orphans who sign up for the military together. After basic training they are sent to fight the Chechen rebels. A rebel leader abducts the pair at one point, but they are able to escape and turn the tables on the man. Alexander eventually strikes up a romance with Masha (Olga Chursina), Volodya's sister. The Forced March was screened at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vladimir Volga, Olga Chursina, (more)
- 2002
Director Valery Todorovsky's somber drama stars Oleg Yankovsky as Mitya, a middle-aged university professor whose wife dies suddenly. In the course of going through her possessions, he comes upon letters proving that she has been having an affair with another man (Sergei Garmash) for the past 15 years. Consumed with grief and jealousy, Mitya seeks out and confronts his wife's former lover, and in the process of coming to grips with his wife's infidelity, nearly destroys himself and his relationship with his teenage son. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oleg Yankovsky, Sergei Garmash, (more)
- 2002
Directed by Dimi Meskhiyev, this hallucinatory film follows cynical businessman Max (Sergei Shakurov) as he investigates the murder of his childhood best friend. The trail leads him in several unexpected directions, including into the path of several beautiful (and sometimes deadly) women. Eventually, Max runs into a gangster who shows Max the diary of his murdered friend. The Diary of a Kamikaze also features Nikolai Chindyaykin, Natalia Kolyakanova, and Yevgenia Dobrovolskaya, and was viewed at the Cannes Film Festival.
~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sergei Shakurov, Nikolai Chindyaykin, (more)
- 2000
Vladimir Khotinenko directs this drama that edges drab realism with moments of sublime fantasy, including a talking raven with a passion for vodka and an aging actress who levitates above her balcony. The film centers on ex-actor Andrei Sokolov (played by screenwriter Sergei Koltakov), whose career was wrecked by his love for alcohol. Now working as an apartment fix-it man, he discovers an old address book and tries to enliven his bleak existence by calling old acquaintances. Most of the people he contacts, from his ex-wife who married a failed writer to an ex-dancer whose leg never recovered from an injury, are just as miserable as he is. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sergei Koltakov, Nina Usatova, (more)
- 2000
Stanislav Govorukhin directs this revenge drama that skewers both that country's pandemic corruption and nouveau riche thugs. Ivan Fedorovich (Mikhail Ulyanov) is a former railway worker who served during WWII as a sharp shooter in a crack Voroshilov regiment. Long retired, Ivan lives with his attractive teenaged granddaughter Katya (Anna Sinyakina), while her executive mother chases both business and men abroad. One day, Katya is picked up by a trio of wealthy young "New Russians" who have a taste for expensive cars and violent Western movies. They take her to a neighboring apartment complex, get her drunk, and then take turns raping her. The three boast that she is not the first girl they have ravaged and will not be the last. When Katya staggers home and tells her grandfather what happened, he immediately informs the police. The cops arrest the rapists and beat a confession out of them. Yet before the criminal trial can proceed, the district inspector (Vladislav Galkin), who coincidentally is the father of one of the rapists, orders the charges be dropped. After angrily complaining to a series of unreceptive bureaucrats, Ivan decides to take manners into his own hands using his old marksmanship expertise and a black market rifle. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mikhail Ulyanov, Alexander Porokhovshchikov, (more)
- 1995
A Russian tour guide leads a group to Italy, finds romance and then suffers a wrenchingly rude awakening in this Italian/Russian comedy drama. Chloya is to take a group of Russian women, who won a prize, on a tour of Venice, but finding her tour group personally distasteful, she decides to sneak off and walk the streets alone so she can show off her spiffy new chapeau. During her self-guided tour she encounters the handsome, charming Lorenzo. He seems genuinely interested in her and they spend the entire day talking and touring the town's little known sights. At the end of the day, they return to her hotel and make passionate love for hours. She is happy until they finish and he coldly produces an itemized bill and reveals that he is a gigolo. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Inna Churikova, Luca Barbareschi, (more)
- 1994
A satirical look at Stalinism and Soviet bureaucracy, the movie is based upon a previously banned Russian novel by Vladimir Voinovich. Ivan Chonkin, an uncomplicated man with a taste for sex, is a soldier assigned to guard a broken down airplane in Red, a tiny rural village. Unbeknownst to him, World War II has erupted and his superior officers have forgotten about him. Chonkin enrages the neighbors when he moves into the home of his lover Nyura, the town postal clerk. To get revenge, the neighbors send an anonymous letter to the secret police accusing Ivan of being a spy. The dreaded NKVD immediately go the remote village to arrest Ivan, but he refuses to leave his post without direct orders from his general. In the end, Ivan Chonkin triumphs over both the secret police and the Soviet army. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gennady Nazarov, Zoya Buryak, (more)
- 1994
This Russian-Hungarian backed concept film is set at a giant Siberian steelworks and focuses upon the exploits of one spectacularly bored employee while subtly commenting on larger issues. Conditions at the works, which produces armor alloys for the military, are grim, dangerous, and barely tolerable. The story presents several episodes from workers' lives but focuses particularly upon young Ignat. When not working, his only entertainment stems from stealing sheep from wandering shepherds, and robbing a train at gunpoint. To find a little more excitement, he enters the annual fight between the strongest metal worker and the strongest miner. This provides the film's climax. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yevgeny Sidikhin, Alexander Kalyagin, (more)
