Nina Usatova Movies

A man of faith uses his gifts in disturbing ways in this drama infused with the supernatural. In 1942, Anatoly (Timofei Tribuntzev) was a sailor in the Russian Navy when his ship was captured by German troops and Anatoly was offered a terrible choice -- he would be allowed to live, but only if he would execute his commanding officer, Captain Tikhon (Aleksei Zelenski). Anatoly impulsively shot Tikhon, and thirty-four years later, Anatoly (now played by Pyotr Mamonov) is still punishing himself for this desperate act. Anatoly lives a Spartan existence in a tumble-down shack near a monastery, where he tends to the furnaces and serves Father Filaret (Viktor Sukhorukov), who lacks Anatoly's rigorous discipline of self-denial, and Father Job (Dmitry Dyuzhev), who treats his willing servant like a slave. While the staff at the monastery prefer not to acknowledge it, Anatoly has developed an unusual reputation in the village -- it's believed he has a gift of prophecy and can heal through faith, but while Anatoly is willing to use these talents, he will only do so for those who are willing to renounce all their worldly possessions and give their lives to the Lord. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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

Barak is a simple portrait of the inhabitants of an old barracks converted to a communal residential neighborhood in a provincial town in the Urals in 1953, during the postwar rebuilding following the death of Stalin. The community is almost self-contained, which sets an example for the lives and loves of ordinary people in the rest of the Soviet Union during a period of upheaval. Twenty-three year old Olga, the sole survivor of a family wiped out in the siege of Leningrad, is the latest arrival to the barracks, where she does not know anyone. Alexei, a militia man, lives with his son Burka and his girlfriend Claudia. Jewish Jora, an eccentric photographer-cum-clown, is a former victim of Stalin's purges. Friedrich is an ex-Nazi soldier married to a Russian. Guerka is an alcoholic dove breeder and a former Nazi collaborator. Polina is a pretentious Ukrainian and Karim the Tatar is her companion. Olga gradually adjusts herself to the circumstances, living each day with moments of joy, sorrow, and unexpected incidents. Director Valeri Ogorodnikov pays attention to the minutest details when drawing a colorful gallery of characters. Dream sequences are interspersed for dramatic highlights. Barak received the Silver Leopard at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival, and Ogorodnikov received the Young Jury award. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

In this comedy-fantasy a group of Russian eccentrics discover that they can go to Paris from their home in St. Petersburg by leaping through an apartment window. The first eccentric is Nikolay, an oddball teacher. Next is his rotund, crude neighbor Gorokhov and his family. One night Nikolay and Gorokhov climb through a hidden window to get on the roof. They get rip-roarin' drunk the destroy the studio apartment of Nicole, an artist. It is only in the morning that they realize that they were actually in Paris. Soon Gorokhov's whole family is going to Paris where they loot and bring back Western goods into Russia. It is Nicole's apartment they go to and she is going crazy by their repeated visits. She turns the tables and climbs through the window to their home. She is appalled by modern St. Petersburg with its violence, poverty, and political upheaval. She gets into trouble with the local police but is saved by Nikolay who convinces them that she is Edith Piaf on tour. Later Nikolay decides to take his students to Paris. Unfortunately, they don't want to leave and the window is going to close for the next 20 years. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The bleak lives of Moscow's underclass in the Soviet era are highlighted in this simple drama about the love that flowers between a fifteen-year-old youth who is the son of "an enemy of the people," and a waitress who is perhaps six years older than him. They face many obstacles, her hot-tempered, knife-wielding ex-boyfriend not the least of them. When the ex-boyfriend steals money from an untended cash-register, the woman who should have prevented that is arrested and faces a long prison term. However, he has bragged about the theft to his ex, and she turns him into the police with the hope of preventing a jail term for the cashier and of getting rid of the old boyfriend. One bright note in this unremitting examination of futureless lives is the return of the boy's father from prison. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A group of escaped criminals hides out in the remote wooded area of Siberia in this grim drama set in the summer of 1953. Although Josef Stalin was already dead, the shadow of his oppressive rule still hangs over the country. The gang makes their way to a small village where political prisoners Luzga (Valeri Priyemykhov) and Kopalich (Anatoli Papanov) wait to escape by boat. Luzga is a former Army scout who can barely hide his contempt of Josef Stalin, while Kopalich is a noted archaeologist. When the village is attacked by the marauding gang, the two political prisoners help defend the townsfolk against the bloodthirsty mob. The last feature for the popular actor Anatoli Papanov, Kholodnoye Leto Pyatdesyat Tretyego was seen by over 40 million people in the Soviet Union, making it the third most popular feature of 1988. This is one of the first perestroika films that showed political prisoners in a sympathetic light. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide