Ana Devic, University of Glasgow, UK
Email: Ana.Devic@lbss.gla.ac.uk
SABANCI SUMMER SCHOOL 2010
POSTSOCIALISM CULT 462/563
FILM in POSTCOMMUNIST RUSSIA: POLITICS of POPULAR CULTURE
ALTERNATIVE TITLE: How Communism Fell and Capitalism Won: Culture and Conflict in Post-cold
war Russia through Film Eyes
Areas: Cultural Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Film Studies, Communism & Post-Communism, East-European
and Russian Studies
This course tackles Eastern European leap from Communism to democracy and capitalism, and the
effects of this globally significant change on Russian cinema as a means of social critique, state propaganda,
and entertainment.
Drawing on theories of popular culture and politics of media hegemony, we will focus, first, on the
history of film narratives and film industry in the Soviet Union during late socialism (from early 1980s), and
the potential and motives of (independent, art) cinema to become a channel for social critique and opposition
during the long era of state censorship and propaganda, and exclusive dependence of film-makers on state
approval and funding for films. We will then examine the topics and currents of the contemporary film
industry in Russia against the background of the globalizing capitalist media market, pressures to produce
blockbusters, and the new Russian nationalism and patriotism. The case study of Russian and Soviet cinema
is particularly relevant since it has, simultaneously and paradoxically, greatly contributed to the
development of Western and world art and cinema, and developed in part separately from Western
influences and the Hollywood until the end of the Cold War in 1989. While the course offers a unique
opportunity to watch rarely shown Soviet and most recent Russian film masterpieces, it is structured as a
field for comparisons – both thematic and cross-regional – in examining the issues in cultural politics and
hegemony between the media industry and political control. In particular, it encourages comparisons with
cinema developments and film-makers in Turkey and other countries outside of the (so far) most influential
film-making regions.
Watching the earlier banned Soviet and new Russian art or blockbuster films reveals how filmmakers
see the fall of socialism & Soviet superpower, U.S. global hegemony, and the resurgence of East West
boundaries. Previously cut off from Western trends, Russian cinema now carries anxieties and
contradictions of brutal shock capitalism, links between the state and mafia business, the wars in Chechnya,
crass individualism and lust for riches, cultural, political and economic nostalgias for socialism (distinct,
often mutually irreconcilable, yet ‘united’ through popular culture and patriotic forms), the Putin-era
national pride, and the dilemma of being (or not) part of Europe.
One of the questions raised in the course would be whether global Hollywood film machine can
actually dictate film production and storyline everywhere. Between identifying all things Western with
Hollywood models, striving for ‘Europe’, and shaping/ reflecting on national identity - where is a place for
socially significant cinema? Can films convey local experiences and conflicts, such as wars, poverty, and
protest against injustice, and still achieve recognition, if not commercial success? How are local and
regional cinema productions reacting to their own state ideologies and national markets? Can we delineate
some sharp differences between commercial, patriotic, and alternative films and their audiences?
Main concepts and themes to explore in this course: Socialism and capitalism; post-Communist
cultural politics; Europe/ West versus ‘Other’; Orientalism; cultural hegemony; propaganda and ideology;
’glocalization’ and ‘Hollywoodization’ of film and popular culture; patriotism and nationalism; terrorism
and war; the ‘new rich’ and new poverty; youth culture; gender and sexuality.
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Further description
The first wave of Russian post-Soviet films in the mid-1980s - in the so-called perestroika and
glasnost period – was about a relentless breaking of taboos in thinking about the communist era politics and
ideology, as well as in popular culture, consumption, and sexual behavior. Most of the films released until
the early 1990s benefited from the best of both worlds – the continuing financial patronage of the state, and
unfettered freedom of artistic expression.
The genre cinema prevailing today in Russian cinematography, which will be in the limelight of this
course, seems to reinforce real and invented traditions, and often reproduces stereotypes even while seeking
to outrage and consternate. Russian blockbusters, especially those that are also successful in the West,
appear to be conservative in their clustering of the society into right or wrong personages, where the good is
under constant pressure to succumb to violence (gangster and war genre), or to (Western, global) pursuit of
material gain and alienation from the emphatic and spiritual (Russian) self. Many, but not all, Russian films
on the Chechen war, as well as those dealing with the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s stand as a case of new
Russian Orientalism vis-a-vis its own Southern 'barbaric Others', but also as a self-Orientalizing pursuit,
emphasizing the unique Russian humanism in contrast to Western materialism, egoism and lack of empathy.
Russia is constructed as the (last?) beacon of Enlightenment, defended and cherished more passionately and
uncompromisingly than in the West, with the ensuing nationalist and global conflicts portrayed (perhaps not
so paradoxically) as more Manichean, violent, and self-extolling than any Soviet-era idealization of a 'new
Communist human' in charge of educating their Southern and Eastern 'younger brethren.'
We will watch and discuss a wide range of films, both art cinema and blockbusters, made by the late
Soviet and contemporary Russian film directors. The latter are produced under conditions typical for all
countries in which globalization of cultural influences goes hand in hand with neo-liberalization of the
economy with its effects on the dismantling of state budgets for film-making, Americanization of the film
repertoire, shortage of private investment, and decline of experimental art cinema. Apart from the films,
course materials include an interdisciplinary reading package that will help illuminate the relationship
between the film-makers’ ideas and film industry conditions, on the one hand, and Russia’s relations with
Western politics and the media, new capitalist relations, and ordinary people’s reactions and identities, on
the other.
Objectives - By the end of the course, you will have acquired an advanced knowledge of:
1. Relevant concepts of the sociology of culture, popular culture and film (production and consumption
of film, music, fashion, elite and 'mass' taste, politics of media hegemony).
2. Russian and late Soviet (‘periphery’) film versus globalization ("Hollywoodization"?); incentives to
make comparisons with film industry and film popularity in Turkey and other ‘periphery’ cinema
3. The history and politics of post-Communist societies, esp. the processes described as the 'transition'
from state socialism and authoritarianism to capitalism and democracy
3. Soviet and Russian culture and politics, including, but not limited to, ethnicity and nationality
policies, everyday life, cinema and media industry, cultural consumption, humor, youth culture.
4. Ability to make presentations linking literature to individual films and stimulate class discussions.
Methods of Assessment:
The grade will be based on:
-
Final take home essay due , worth 60% of the grade (9-12 pages double spaced), which will not be
accepted without the following:
-
Regular attendance – 10 %
-
each student making an in-class 15-20 min. presentation (they can be also group presentations) – 15
%
emailing me in the end of each week a ‘diary’ (1-page of very brief, concise summary of main points
and issues raised during that week, assessing readings and films) – 15%
handing in (via email) your exam essay outline (1-3 pages) on
.
-
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Reading packs
Films will be watched during classes, along with discussing texts, while we will also agree on having extra
hours each week just to have enough time to see all films, many of which are unique copies.
SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND FILMS
(The list seems long since it also includes newspaper articles, the full list of films by directors, plus
diverse ‘recommended literature’ for those who may have further interest in the subject in the future)
WEEK 1
a) RELEVANT CONCEPTS IN STUDIES OF POPULAR CULTURE:
HEGEMONY AND CONSENSUS; THE "THIRD DIMENSION OF POWER"
Mariko Tomita and Carl Bybee, "Theories of the news"
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC34folder/TheoriesofNews.html
This online article summarizes excellent definitions and examples of cultural hegemony (Antonio Gramsci,
Steven Lukes) and media framing (Todd Gitlin).
b) WHAT WAS SOCIALISM AND HOW ‘GLASNOST’, ‘PERESTROIKA’ AND
‘TRANSITION TO CAPITALISM’ CAME ABOUT
Katherine Verdery. What Was Socialism and Why Did It Fall & A Transition from Socialism to
Feudalism? Thoughts on the Postsocialist State. In: Verdery, K. What Was Socialism and What Comes Next?
Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 19-38 and 204–228.
Aleksei Yurchak. Soviet Hegemony of Form: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. 2003.
Society for Comparative Study of Society and History.
http://blc.berkeley.edu/Yurchak__Hegemony_of_form.pdf
Aleksander Smolar, From Opposition to Atomization: Civil Society After Communism, Journal of
Democracy 7.1 (1996) 24-38.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v007/7.1smolar.html
Michael Brashinsky and Andrew Horton, eds. 1994. Russian Critics on the Cinema of Glasnost, ‘On the
Road that leads to Truth,’ pp. 51-59, ‘Forward, singing,’ pp. 105-107, ‘Taxi Blues,’ pp. 135-137.
Recommended:
Nancy Ries. Russian talk: Culture and Conversation during Perestroika. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1997, The Rituals and Paradoxes of Perestroika, pp. 161-187.
Andrei Plakhov, "Russian Cinema Reborn," The Moscow Times, April 1998.
http://uchcom.botik.ru/ARTS/contemporary/362/NEWCIN/NC1.HTM
WEEK 2
STATE AND NATION (ALISM)
Georgi Derluguian, "Recasting Russia," New Left Review, 12, November-December 2001.
http://newleftreview.org/?view=2354
Iver Neumann, “Russia as Central Europe’s Constituting Other,” East European Politics and Societies 7:
1993, pp. 349-69.
http://eep.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/7/2/349
Yuri Slezkine, The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic
Particularism, Slavic Review 52, no. 2 (Summer 1994), pp. 414-452.
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http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2501300.pdf
Michael Urban, "Remythologizing the Russian State", Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 50, No. 6, 1998, pp. 96992.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713414944
Recommended: Julie Christensen, Tengiz Abuladze's Repentance and the Georgian Nationalist Cause,
Slavic Review, Vol. 50, 1 (Spring 1991), pp. 163-175 http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2500608.pdf
WEEK 3
FILM INDUSTRY AND THE SEARCH FOR NATIONAL IDENTITY
Birgit Beumers, ed. 1999/2000. Russia on Reels: The Russian Idea in Post-Soviet Cinema. London: I.B.
Tauris. Pp. 43-104: "To Moscow! To Moscow? The Russian Hero and the Loss of the Centre" 76-87, and
the short speech addresses by Sergei Selianov, Daniil Dondurei, Nikita Mikhalkov, Tatiana Moskvina,
David Gillespie, and Natasha Zhuravkina.
Birgit Beumers, "Cinemarket, or the Russian Film Industry in 'Mission Possible'", Europe-Asia Studies vol.
51, no. 5 (1999), pp. 871-896.
Dina Iordanova, "Showdown of the Festivals: Clashing Entrepreneurships and Post-Communist
Management of Culture" in Film International, Vol. 4, Nr. 5, Issue 23. October 2006. pp. 25-38.
Susan Larsen. National Identity, Cultural Authority, and the Post-Soviet Blockbusters: Nikita Mikhalkov
and Aleksei Balabanov. Slavic Review, Vol.62, No. 3 (2003), 491-511.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3185803.pdf
Yana Hashamova, “Two Visions of a Usable Past in (Op)position to the West: Mikhalkov's 'The Barber of
Siberia' and Sokurov's 'Russian Ark',” The Russian Review, Volume 65, Number 2, April 2006 , pp. 250257.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9434.2005.00398.x
Susan Larsen, “In Search of an Audience: The New Russian Cinema of Reconciliation.” In Adele Barker,
ed. Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, ed.. Duke University Press,
1999, pp. 192-216.
Special issue of Slavic and East European Journal on post-Soviet Film 51. 3 (2007) – selected articles:
Helena GOSCILO: Introduction, pp. 214-228; Irina MAKOVEEVA: The New Century: Has the Russian
Pandora’s Time Come? Pp. 247-271; Alexander PROKHOROV: From Family Reintegration to
Carnivalistic Degradation: Dismantling Soviet Communal Myths in Russian Cinema of the Mid-1990s, pp.
272-295; Vladimir STRUKOV: The Return of Gods: Andrei Zviagintsev’s Vozvrashchenie (The Return),
pp. 331-356; Serguei OUSHAKINE: Aesthetics without Laws: Cinematic Bandits in Post-Soviet Space, pp.
357-390.
Recommended:
Catherine Merridale, Amnesiac Nation, Index on Censorship, (2005) 34:2, pp. 76 – 82.
Ludmila Bulavka, "Nikita Mikhalkov and Burnt by the Sun: A Monarchist Film-Maker Confronts Humane
Socialism," New Left Review, 221, January-February 1997.
http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=1892
Vida T. Johnson, "The Search for a New Russia in an "Era of Few Films," Russian Review, Vol. 56, No. 2,
(Apr., 1997), pp. 281-285.
Dale Pesmen. 2000. Russia and Soul: An Exploration. Ithaca: Cornell University Press: Like the Trojan
Horse’s Gut: Hospitality and Nationalism. pp.150-170, Depth, Openings, and Closings, pp. 211-229.
David Gillespie, Russian Cinema, Longman, 2002, chapter 'The Course and Curse of History', pp. 59-81.
WEEK 4
MEMORY AND FORGETTING OF THE COMMUNIST PAST: NOSTALGIA; GUILT,
INNOCENCE AND DISSIDENCE
Sergei Oushakine, The Terrifying Mimicry of Samizdat (On the Soviet Dissidents/ Intellectual opponents
to the regime, Public Culture, vol. 13, No. 2 (2001), pp. 191-214.
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http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/public_culture/v013/13.2oushakine.html
Serguei Oushakine. 2000. “In the State of Post-Soviet Aphasia: Symbolic Development in Contemporary
Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 6 (Sep., 2000), pp. 991-1016
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/153587.pdf
Alexander Etkind. 2009. “Post-Soviet Hauntology: Cultural Memory of the Soviet Terror,” Constellations
6 (1):182-200.
Alexei Yurchak. “Gagarin and the Rave Kids: Transforming Power, Identity and Aesthetics in Post-Soviet
Night-Life” In: Adele Barker, ed. Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex and Society. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1999, pp.76–109.
Maya Nadkarni and Olga Shevchenko. The Politics of Nostalgia: A Case for Comparative Analysis of
Post-socialist Practices, 1-2, Ab İmperio, Issue 2/2004.
Reccommended:
Oksana Bulgakowa, Constructing the Past in Contemporary Russian Film and Architecture, or Where the
Russians Live in Russian Films
http://www.stanford.edu/group/Russia20/volumepdf/bulgakowa.pdf
Svetlana Boym. ‘Post-Soviet cinematic nostalgia: from 'elite cinema' to soap opera’, Discourse, 17, 1995, 3,
pp. 75-84
Tatiana Tolstaya. 2003. Pushkin's Children: Writing on Russia and Russians (Mariner Books 2003). The
Price of Eggs; The Making of Mr. Putin.
Memorial – Human Rights and Humanitarian Society
http://www.memo.ru/eng/index.htm
The sole NGO in Russia dedicated to research on collective and individual memories of the Soviet past,
individual biographies and material culture of the Stalinist purges and prison camps, and involved in
monitoring and protesting current violations of human rights of immigrants and marginalized groups in
Russia.
WEEK 5
GLOBALIZATION OF CONSUMPTION, LEISURE, AND WORK: NEW BUSINESS CULTURE
AND SOCIAL RELATIONS; NEW INEQUALITIES: BECOMING RICH AND POOR
Vadim Volkov, “Violent Entrepreneurship in Post-Communist Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies, (July 1999),
Vol. 51 # 5, pp. 741-754.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/153859.pdf
Hilary Pilkington, Elena Omelchenko, Moya Flynn, Ul’iana Bliudina, Elena Starkova. Looking West:
Cultural Globalization and Russian Youth Cultures. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2000, chapters: Cultural Globalization & On the Outside Looking In.
Olga Shevchenko. 2002 ’'Between the Holes': Emerging Identities and Hybrid Patterns of Consumption in
Post-Socialist Russia.” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 54, No. 6 (Sep., 2002), pp. 841-866.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/826286.pdf
Birgit Beumers. 2005. Pop Culture Russia: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle. Oxford: ABC-CLIO (chapters:
Introduction, pp. 1-12, and 'The Media', pp. 13-70).
Reccommended:
Victor Pelevin. 2001. Babylon (Generation ‘P’). Faber and Faber (selected chapters).
Victor Pelevin. “The Tambourine for the Upper World.” Glas, 1994, vol.7, pp. 40–54.
Dale Pesmen. If You Want To Live, You’ve Got to Krutit’sia: Crooked and Straight. In: D.Pesmen. Russia
and Soul: An Exploration. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000, pp. 189–207.
Caroline Humphrey. The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies After Socialism. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2000. Pp. 5-20; 40-63; 175–201: Mythmaking, Narratives, and the Dispossessed in Russia;
Creating the Culture of Disillusionment: Consumption in Moscow, a Chronicle of Changing Times; The
Villas of the ‘New Russians’: A Sketch of Consumption and Cultural Identity in Post-Soviet Landscape.
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WEEK 6
GLOBALIZING NATION (ALISM)/ THE WARS IN CHECHNYA
ORIENTALISM, CLASS AND GENDER TURMOILS
Explore this site and its links for definitions, stages and forms of Orientalism:
Deepika Bahri (Emory University, Postcolonial Studies)
http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Orientalism.html
Anna Politkovskaya, A small corner of hell: dispatches from Chechnya /translated by Alexander Burry and
Tatiana Tulchinsky; with an introduction by Georgi Derluguian/. London: University of Chicago Press,
2003.
Yana Hashamova, “Post-Soviet Russian Film and the Trauma of Globalization,” Consumption, Markets
and Culture, Volume 7, Number 1 /March 2004, pp.53-68.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713639099~db=all~order=page
Georgi M. Derulugian, Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography, University
of Chicago Press, 2005 (Chapters: The Nationalization of Provincial Revolutions, pp. 166-218, and The
Scramble for Soviet Spoils, pp. 219-286).
Austin Jersild. The Chechen Wars in Historical Perspective: New Works on Contemporary RussianChechen Relations. Slavic Review, 2004, Vol.63 (2), pp.367-377.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3185733.pdf
Yana Hashamova, Castrated Patriarchy, Violence, and Gender Hierarchies in Post-Soviet Film, in Helena
Goscilo and Andrea Lanoux, eds. Gender and National Identity in Twentieth Century Russian Culture.
DeKaIb: Northern Illinois University Press. 2006.
Recommended:
Author ? "Construction of gender and family in Russian mobster" films
http://everything2.com/e2node/Aleksei%2520Balabanov
An opinionated blogger's review.“From Russia with....pretense?”
http://www.epinions.com/content_182273805956; Walking with shadows (an opinionated blogger's
review) http://www.epinions.com/content_92015201924
Georgi M. Derulugian. “Che Guevaras in Turbans,” New Left Review, Sept. 1999, pp. 3-27.
http://www.newleftreview.org/A2002
Yana Hashamova. 2007. Pride and Panic: Russian Imagination of the West in Post-Soviet Film. Bristol:
Intellect, chapters: The Russian Hero: Fantasies of Wounded National Pride, pp. 39-61; West, East, and
Russia: Ambivalence, Reflection, and Traversing the Fantasy, pp. 97-111; Conclusion – the West and
Beyond, pp. 112-121.
Denise J. Youngblood. 2006. Russian War Films: On the Cinema Front, 1914-2005. University Press of
Kansas. Chapter: After the Fall, 1992-2005, pp. 205-218.
Rimgaila Salys, “Three-Rib Circus: Women and Historical Discourse in “Rebro Adama,’” The Russian
Review, Volume 60, Issue 4, October 2001, pp. 614-630.
http://www.blackwellsynergy.com/action/showPdf?submitPDF=Full+Text+PDF+%28146+KB%29&doi=10.1111%2F00360341.00193
FILMS - BY DIRECTORS AND SUBJECTS (all with English subtitles)
*- most important, a must
1. ELDAR RYAZANOV, Irony of Fate or Enjoy your Bath (Ironiia sud'by ili s legkim parom), 1975*
Cult nostalgia film of the ‘ripe’ 1970s socialist consumer culture, comedy-drama about the uniformity and
solitude (still shown on main TV channels across Russia every New Year’s eve!)
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Films 2-9 are cornerstone films of the late 1980s ‘perestroika’ and ‘glasnost’ : turning points away
from the fears of state censorship, and toward facing the terrors of Communism, and meanings of
economic and political freedom: Stalinist purges (guilt and responsibility), mockery of Communism, youth
rebellion, criminal underground, class conflict, poverty, corruption, anti-Semitism.
KIRA MURATOVA (the always underestimated ‘Russian Mike Leigh’): conformism and violence of interpersonal relations during Communist regime; corruption of individuals in post-Soviet capitalism
2. Asthenic Syndrome (Astenicheskii Syndrom), 1989*
3. Chekovian Motives (Chekhovskie motivy), 2002
4. The Tuner (Nastroishchik), 2004*
5.
6.
7.
8.
VASILII PICHUL, Little Vera (Malenkaya Vera), 1988*
TENGIZ ABULADZE, The Repentance (Pokayanie), 1984-banned; in distribution since 1987*
ALEKSANDR PROSHKIN, Cold Summer of 1953 (Kholodnoe leto piatdesiat tretiego), 1987*
PAVEL LUNGIN, Taxi Blues (Taksi blyuz), 1990*
NIKITA MIKHALKOV: a director for/of all regimes: Stalinist purges, national treason, patriotism,
Russian imperial glory/ envy of the West
9. Burnt by the Sun (Utomlyonnye solntsem), 1994*
10. The Barber of Siberia (Sibirskii tsiriul'nik), 1999*
ALEXANDER SOKUROV: problematic relation of individual to nation, East (Russia, ‘Orient’) to
West subordination, children and parents
11. Russian Ark (Russkii kovcheg), 2002*
12. Mother and Son (Mat' y syn), 1996
13. Father and Son (Otets i syn), 2003
Russian (wounded) global status, wars in Chechnya and Afghanistan, patriotism and longing for the Soviet
Union
14. SERGEI BODROV, Prisoner of the Mountain (Kavkazskii plennik), 1994
15. VLADIMIR KHOTINENKO, Muslim (Musul'manin), 1995*
16. ALEKSEI BALABANOV, War (Voina), 2002*
17. ALEXANDER NEVZOROV, Purgatory (Chistilishche),1998
18. FEDOR BONDARCHUK, 9th Company (9-ia rota), 2005
Russia’s problematic relation to the West
19. ALEKSANDR ROGOZHKIN, The Peculiarities of the National Hunt (Osobennosti natsional’noi
okhoty), 1995*
20. ALEXANDER SOKUROV, Russian Ark (Russkii kovcheg), 2002
Ordinary people’s perspectives on transition to capitalism, everyday life injustices, urban-andcosmopolitan confidence status, new rich and new poor, harsh reality and dreams, perceptions of class
and ethnicity; the Russia’s young and old generations’ marginal status
21. BAKHTYAR KHUDOJNAZAROV, The Fancy Suit (Shik), 2003*
22. BAKHTYAR KHUDOJNAZAROV, Luna Papa, 1999
23. ALEXEI UCHITEL, A Walk (Progulka), 2003*
24. GENNADI SIDOROV, Old Women (Starukhi), 2003*
25. OKSANA BYCHKOVA, Piter FM (2006)*
26. IBOLYA FEKETE, Bolshe Vita (1996)
27. ANNA MELIKYAN, Mermaid (Rusalka), 2007
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Russian and international mafia, celebrity lifestyle, police corruption, crime and punishment, national
patriotism against crime, lonely Robin Hoods
28. ALEKSEI BALABANOV, Brother 2 (Brat-2), 2000*
29. PAVEL LUNGIN, Tycoon, A New Russian (Oligarkh), 2002
Gender and power; women, work, and romance in post-Communism
30. VIACHESLAV KRISTOFOVICH, Lonely Woman Seeks Lifetime Companion (Odinokaia zhenchina
zhelaet poznakomit'sia), 1986
31. VIACHESLAV KRISHTOFOVICH, Adam's Rib (Rebro Adama), 1990
32. ALEKSEI BALABANOV, Of Freaks and Men (Pro urodov i lyudei), 1998
33. LARISA SADILOVA, From Lilya, with Love (S lyubovyu, Lilya), 2003*
Spiritual escape, nostalgia, nature, religious and (male) authority rebirth
34. ANDREI ZVIAGINTSEV, The Return (Vozvrashchenie) (2003)*
35. BORIS KHLEBNIKOV, Koktebel, Summer Resort (Koktebel’), 2003*
36. PAVEL LUNGIN, The Island (Ostrov), 2006*
8