Irina Kupchenko Movies

Galina has grown increasingly skittish since her divorce, and her students (she's a high-school teacher) become alert to her vulnerability. Restraint would be uncharacteristic in this situation, as teens are notoriously unforgiving of the imperfections of their elders. They band together to make a complaint to the school governing committee that she's incompetent and anti-Semitic. When the students discover that she's having an affair with another teacher, they intrude on that, too. The last straw comes when, as a "trick," they kidnap her son from nursery school. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Andrei Konchalovsky's examination of totalitarianism, and the self-deluded mind-set that allows it to happen, is based on Konchalovsky's meeting with a bureaucratic flunky of Stalin's -- his personal projectionist -- during his early days as a filmmaker. Set during the height of Stalin's rule (1939 through 1953), the story concerns Ivan Sanchin (Tom Hulce), a motion picture projectionist who worships the Soviet leader like a god. He lives in a tiny apartment, sharing his space with a Jewish family. One day, the KGB bursts into the apartment of his Jewish neighbors and carts them away. Later that night, there is a loud banging on his door and standing before him are two KGB agents, who drag him off into the night. While at first Ivan can't understand what he did wrong, it seems the news is good -- Stalin wants Ivan to take over as his official motion picture projectionist. But since his job is high security, he can't tell his wife Anastasia (Lolita Davidovich) what he does for a living. When Anastasia takes an interest in the orphaned child of his former Jewish neighbors, Ivan begins to worry that Anastasia's visits to the state orphanage might have political repercussions against him. When he gets his wife a job serving Stalin's cabinet, he thinks he's solved his political worries. Unfortunately, Anastasia catches the amorous eye of KGB chief Beria (Bob Hoskins), and Ivan's unquestioning faith in the Soviet leaders is sorely tested. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

A loveless young Russian woman decides to find a boy friend by posting handbills containing the title information plus home address in this comedy. Unfortunately, what she gets is a filthy, homeless bum who shows the same night and demands she give him money. Naturally she does what any wise young woman would do and clonks him on the noggin with her iron board. As soon as he regains consciousness she boots him out into the street. Despite her brutish ways, the hobo finds the girl attractive and continues showing up at her apartment on a variety of feeble pretexts. As the game continues, the lonely girl can't help but be charmed by the persistent stranger and eventually gives him a key so he can have a place to stay while he looks for work. She also buys him appropriate clothing. The two slowly become better friends and that is enough to brighten each of their dreary lives (they never do get physical) and give them hope to make the best of things until the stories bittersweet conclusion. Lonely Woman.... was originally billed as the first post glastnost comedy to be released in Russia. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This absorbing movie is from beginning to end, no more than a dialogue that happens between a now-divorced couple when the ex-husband visits his former wife in her two-room apartment, intending to destroy her pending marriage to a colleague who has control over him and his career. Apparently the husband has always done whatever he could to further his own advancement, even at the expense of family and friends. Tension mounts as he tries to manipulate his ex-wife by any means possible. These scenes were shot over a seven-week period of stage rehearsals for a play that finally did not open, so the filmed play was released as this movie. First shown at the Moscow Film Festival in 1983, it shared the FIPRESCI (International Association of Film Journalists) Critics' Prize. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Irina Kupchenko stars in this psychological drama by the renowned director/writer team of Yuli Raizman and Yevgeny Gabrilovich. In the story, she is the entirely respectable wife of a career diplomat, with a teenaged son. Suddenly one day, she decides to leave her marriage and go live with her lover. In fact, her marriage has been rocky for some time, as her husband travels constantly and pays her little attention. She has a new lover, a divorced scientist with a daughter. However, she only tells her husband that she's leaving him. She doesn't tell anybody else -- not family, friends, nor even the man she is now living with. Eventually, she and her new lover also part ways, and after a brief visit with her mother, she takes an apartment to live in with just her son for company. However, all along she has had an admirer, considerably younger than she is, who has been looking for her so as to confess his love. At the end of the film, he finally catches up with her. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi