Stanislav Lyubshin Movies
- 1994
This emotional Russian drama is set in Moscow, 1963 and centers on Elena who works as a hostess at an upscale nightspot. She lives in a single-room flat with her 22-year-old son Yuri. Elena dreams of going with her son, a budding concert pianist, to an important Paris competition, but before they can go, there is much work to be done and she must keep him focused on his music. Unfortunately, Yuri and his fiancee Katya have a tremendous fight after she tells him that she is Jewish (the anti-Semitic Elena fears that the Katya could ruin Yuri's chances of winning the competition). They break up and Yuri turns to a seductive translator for consolation. Meanwhile, Elena is busily hobnobbing, manipulating and doing anything she can to insure her son a place in the competition. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tatyana Vasilyeva, Dmitriy Malikov, (more)
- 1991
Rita wants to be a figure of glamor, a wonder for all who see her, the toast of the town. If she could, she would be Marilyn Monroe. As it is, she's a fairly ordinary girl who has a boyfriend who spends a lot of his time looking after his sickly mother. It's not glamorous, but it's real. When she meets a famous photographer, a man who is much older than she is, she immediately sees that he could make things happen for her, and she latches onto him and largely abandons her old boyfriend. Before long, however, she discovers that she's not all that keen on the high life, and she occasionally seeks comfort in the younger man's arms. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kseniya Kachalina, Stanislav Lyubshin, (more)
- 1979
Soviet filmmaker Gleb Panfilov has never shirked from expressing his own views on film, no matter who's calling the shots in the Politburo. Originally titled Tema, it tells the story of a young man who has allowed himself to be victimized by The System. The protagonist thinks of himself as an artist, but his inner weakness prohibits him from rising above the conformist mediocrity expected of him. Motivating the story's denouement is a female character, a carry-over from Panfilov recently completed trilogy of films in which a woman was center of attention. Available only in a radically censored version for many years, Theme was not given a general release in its uncut form until 1986, seven years after its completion. It won several festival awards, including Berlin's Golden Bear. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Inna Churikova, Mikhail Ulyanov, (more)
- 1979
This nostalgic comedy drama is set during the time of "communal apartments" in the 1950s, when very diverse people had to share pre-revolutionary apartments. Here, a woman who lives in such an apartment in Moscow has likeable neighbors who always come to her at the wrong moment to watch TV. She is an independent, emancipated woman. She meets an ambitious engineer from the provinces whom she likes, but things are not perfect between them and there are frequent breakups, which are not eased by having the neighbors almost literally in their laps most of the time. This very popular film is based on a play by Alexander Volodin. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lyudmila Gurchenko, Stanislav Lyubshin, (more)
- 1978
Stanislav Lyubshin plays the unlucky bookkeeper Vladimir in this distinguished stage and screen actor's directorial debut, based on the late Vasily Shukshin's stories and last (unfilmed) screenplay. Call Me From Afar was the Grand Prize winner at the 1977 Mannheim Film Festival. It is part of a Shukshin trilogy which begins with Pechki Lavochki and concludes with Kalina Krasnaya. In this film, a widow (Lidia Fedoseyeva-Shukshina) is told by her son and then her brother that she should marry again. She finds a likely candidate in a local bachelor, but during their betrothal feast, discovers that he is a reforming alcoholic who is occasionally irrational. Though she calls off the wedding, she takes this setback in stride. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lidiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina, Stanislav Lyubshin, (more)
- 1977
Based on a story by Anton Chekhov, this film by renowned director Sergei Bonderchuk (best known for his film War and Peace) basks in the vast and visually magnificent qualities of life on the steppes of southern Russia in the era before the Russian Revolution. The story revolves around the journey of a wagon train bearing materials from the countryside to the marketplace. Riding along with the wagon train in carriages are an Orthodox priest and a trader carrying his nephew into town to receive some schooling. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oleg Kuznetsov, Vladimir Sedov, (more)
- 1976
The parallel tribulations of two women are the theme of this drama. After suffering horribly from the actions of her boyfriend, a young woman is brought to trial after trying to kill him and then herself. Unfortunately, the ruthless boyfriend persuades her to incriminate herself on the witness stand. The girl's defense lawyer provides the parallel story, as a woman preparing to marry her live-in lover. Premarital family meetings tell the story of their lives together. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marina Neelova, Oleg Yankovsky, (more)
- 1976
Near the close of the Russian Civil War, in 1923, a young man begins studying journalism at a worker newspaper and has a series of romantic adventures which cause him to mature swiftly. He rescues a beautiful girl from an abusive family situation, only to lose her to a smooth-talking sharpster the first time he has to leave town on assignment. Another much nicer and more principled girl is really in love with him, but he doesn't know it. This bittersweet coming-of-age story was based on a novel by Vera Panova. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yelena Proklova, Yelena Koreneva, (more)
- 1973
Monolog caused some stir in the Eastern Bloc on its release in 1973 because it focused realistically on the emotional problems of people and was not ideologically heavyhanded. In the film, the quiet, settled routine of a professor, whose best days are seemingly behind him, is upset when his volatile daughter comes for a visit and leaves her own daughter behind for him to raise. At the same time, one of his students challenges him to take up some scientific work he had abandoned earlier in his career. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mikhail Gluzsky, Marina Neelova, (more)
- 1973
A poor man suffering from tuberculosis is accompanied by his wife as he journeys by train to a sanitorium in Yalta. During their journey, the couple runs into a variety of people, from the abusive city-dweller to an unexpectedly generous thief. Once there, they are informed that there is no room in the sanitorium for his wife, and they have no money to enable her either to stay or to return home. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vasili Shukshin, Lidiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina, (more)
