Yekaterina Rednikova Movies

After nearly a half-a-century of silence, the final secret of Josef Stalin reveals itself to a former Oxford historian who is currently attending a Russian conference for the newly opened Soviet archives in a tense international thriller starring Daniel Craig (Casino Royale). Fluke Kelso (Craig) is on his way out of Russia when an unexpected visit from an ex-officer of the Soviet Secret Police offers hints of a deadly scandal. Later, when the mysterious former agent is found brutally slain, Kelso enlists the aid of the man's daughter Zinaida in finding the answer to a mystery that was presumably buried along with the Soviet Union dictator back in 1953. When Fluke and Zinaida travel to the remote Russian seaport of Archangel in search of the elusive truth, the vengeance of both the Russian authorities and the dangerous underworld threatens to silence them both and keep Stalin's secret buried for yet another half-a-century. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A boy and his mother try to get by in the Soviet Union of the 1950s in this tragedy written and directed by Pavel Chukrai. The joint Russian-French production opens with a woman falling down in the snow and mud to give birth to a child in 1946. The boy's father is a soldier who died in the war. Katya (Yekaterina Rednikova) and her son Sanya (Misha Philipchuk) are next seen six years later on a train. Poor and desperate, she falls in love with a rakish soldier, Tolyan (Vladimir Mashkov). Tolyan pretends to be Katya's husband and uses his credentials as a war veteran to get an apartment without paying money in advance -- he turns out to be a brutal and abusive man. He teaches Sanya his ruthless code of manhood while rolling razor blades in his mouth with his tongue. Tolyan also brags to the boy that he is a secret son of Stalin. After several weeks of mooching off and seducing the other tenants, Tolyan buys them all dinner and tickets to a circus. During the performance he sneaks back to the building and robs everyone. Katya is suspicious that he is carrying on with a female tenant he has been flirting with, and she returns to catch him in his burglary. He tells her she can escape with him or stay behind, but she has no skills and no prospect of work, so she takes Sanya and follows him. Katya becomes a part of his con game as they move from city to city, working the same schemes. Tolyan also teaches Sanya his thieving ways. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi