Slavic Feature Films
updated (10/05)

Czech | Hungarian | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Serbian

Czech

Alice. orig. 1988. 1 videodisc (84, 7 min.). Alice: A little girl follows an elusive White Rabbit and so begins this dream expedition into the landscape of childhood, combining techniques of animation, puppet theatre and live action in Svankmajer's surreal version of Alice's adventures in Wonderland. Darkness light darkness: A man literally constructs himself within the confines of a very small room--a potent allegory of Svankmajer's life in Eastern Europe. DVD 909.

Capricious summer. orig. 1968. 1 videocassette (74 min.). In a sleepy, second-rate resort, three middle-aged friends have their lives disrupted by the sudden appearance of a magician and his assistant. The trio forget about swimming as each man sets about to seduce the assistant. VHS 6793.

Closely watched trains = Ostre sledované vlaky. orig. 1966. 1 videocassette (92 min.). Comedy-drama about a young trainmaster employed in a tiny station during World War II. He becomes involved in a plot to blow up a German ammunition train, but when the plan backfires, he is forced to commit the ultimate act of courage. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 570, DVD 1984.

The Collected shorts of Jan Svankmajer the early years. The KimStim collection. orig. 2003. 1 videodisc (86 min.). DVD 899,

The Collected shorts of Jan Svankmajer the later years. The KimStim collection. orig. 2003. 1 videodisc (76 min.). DVD 900.

Dark blue world. 2002. 1 videodisc (112 min.). Having flown for the British R.A.F., Czech pilot Franta finds himself imprisoned in a post-World War II totalitarian Communist labor camp for "betraying" his country. Going back to the start of the war, Franta and his young protégé, Karel, escape Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to join the R.A.F. in fighting the Germans. This is a story about love, comradeship and sacrifice. DVD 415.

Démanty noci = Diamonds in the night; Sousto = Der Bissen = A Bite to eat. orig. 1964. 1 videocassette (ca. 74 min.). Diamonds of the night: Set in Czechoslovakia during World War II, film is a study of two Jewish boys who escape from a train which is taking them from one concentration camp to another only to be caught by local peasants and charged with stealing bread.  A Bite to eat:  A short film with minimal dialogue that shows a feverish attempt to steal a loaf of bread from a Nazi-guarded train. VHS 446.

Dita Saxova. orig. 1967. 1 videocassette (98 min.). The story of Dita, a beautiful girl who survived a Nazi concentration camp and now lives with other survivors in a youth hostel in Prague. She finds it difficult to adjust to this new life. VHS 447.

Faust. orig. 1994. 1 videocassette (93 min.). An everyman lured off the streets of Prague finds himself becoming Faust and entering a world of mind-boggling magic and strange encounters. He summons up Mephisto, makes his awful pact and is plunged into a world of laughing devils, dreams and nightmares. Live action is merged with stop-motion and claymation animation. VHS 4839.

The Films of Milos Forman. orig. 1999. 1 videodisc (ca. 60 min.). Milos Forman talks about his films and the making of them, provides a brief autobiographical introduction of how he got started in his career, and follows with film reminiscences giving insights about the production, the casting process, studios, the industry and experiences with collaborators. DVD 578.

The Firemen's ball = Hori, ma panenko. orig. 1967. 1 videocassette (74 min.). In a small provincial town, arrangements for the fireman's annual ball go wrong at every turn. VHS 4639.

Kolya. orig. 1996. 1 videodisc (105 min.). A confirmed bachelor is in for the surprise of his life when a get-rich-quick scheme backfires, setting off a wild set of circumstances and leaving him with a pint-sized new roommate. DVD 374.

Loves of a blonde = Lásky jedné plavovlásky. orig. 1965. 1 videocassette (88 min.). Comedic look at the pathos and awkwardness of post-adolescent love in a story about life in a small factory town in Czechoslovakia, not far from Prague, where the women outnumber the men ten to one. For teenage girls entering womanhood, this imbalance results in an impassioned desire to find out about "real life" and love. They began to learn some bitter truths about real life and love, when a group of army reservists came through their town. One girl falls in love with a pianist, who after swearing eternal love, leaves for his home. VHS 4660.

Modlitba pro Katerina Horovitzovou = A Prayer for Katerina Horovitzova. orig. 1991. 1 videocassette (90 min.). Tale of a Polish singer who becomes a pawn in a nefarious arrangement which entails exchanging Jewish captives for Nazi officers held in American prisons. VHS 2038.

My sweet little village = Vesnicko má stredisková. orig. 1985. 1 videocassette (100 min.). Comedy about the people who inhabit a small town, including the village Laurel and Hardy-like pair who drive a dump truck, the town doctor who wrecks he car because he's admiring the scenery, a romantic teenager and an adulterous housewife and her boyfriend. VHS 4616.

O Slavnosti a hostech = A Report on the party and the guests. orig. 1966. 1 videocassette (ca. 71 min.). Experimental film that explores free will, freedom and unquestioning conformity. Seven people picnicking in the woods meet a group led by Klusák, a sadist. Klusák forces the picnickers to a clearing where they are brutally interrogated in some sort of mad psychological game. A stranger arrives, apologizes for Klusák's behavior, and invites the group to a banquet. Once seated, they are ordered to change their seats. When it is discovered that one of the guests is missing, Klusák claims the man's behavior is ruining the banquet and forms a party with dogs and guns to search for the him. VHS 4842.

Obchod na korze = The Shop on Main Street. Jewish Heritage Video Collection. orig. 1965. 1 videocassette (128 min.). In 1942, Tono and his wife are struggling because of his antipathy towards the fascist regime. His brother-in-law, the local fuehrer, chooses Tono to oversee a button shop owned by a sweet, harmless Jewish widow, Mrs. Lautman. Unable to explain his position to Mrs. Lautman, Tono gradually accepts her belief that he is her assistant. When the Jews are ordered deported, the well-meaning Tono decides to shield her from the Nazis. VHS 3143.

Obecna skola = The Elementary school. orig. 1991. 1 videocassette (100 min.). Set in a small village outside Prague in post-war Czechoslovakia when the Nazis have departed and the Communists have not yet arrived, film explores the lives of pre-adolescent boys in a series of vignettes. They drive one teacher insane with their pranks and her replacement is a self-proclaimed "hero" of the Underground resistance who soon takes up with someone else's wife. VHS 4843.

Oratorio for Prague. orig. 1968. 1 videocassette (30 min.). A film begun as a documentary about the liberalization of Czechoslovakia becomes a record of the entry of Soviet tanks into Prague in 1968. VHS 6222.

Otesánek = Little Otik. orig. 2000. 1 videodisc (126 min.). In this adaptation of a Czech legend about an infertile couple, a husband presents a tree stump that physically resembles a baby to console his wife. When she treats it like a real baby, it comes to life and acquires a monstrous appetite. DVD 907.

Skrivánci na niti = Larks on a string. orig. 1990. 1 videocassette (96 min.). Set in the early 1950s in Czechoslovakia. While serving time for desertion and other minor crimes, a rag-tag group of workers assigned to a junkyard unite as a young couple decides to marry. Even the prison guards can't resist this romance as the wedding and on-site honeymoon unfold in a series of plot twists. VHS 4515.

Spiklenci slasti. orig. 1996. 1 videodisc (97 min.). Conspirators of pleasure: a partially animated, surreal comedy without dialog, about six individuals and their sexual fantasies and fetishes which usually involve bizarre, homemade autoerotic contraptions. Food: features grey-suited men as human vending machines, a couple at diner devouring a restaurant, and a tour of a cannibalistic banquet. DVD 941.

Tereza = Theresa. orig. 1961. 1 videocassette  (91 min.). A film about murder and privilege: Theresa is a young police detective involved in the investigation of murder that no one seems to want solved. She comes to believe that the killer is a Communist official being protected by the system. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 4840.

Vsichni dobrí rodáci = All good countrymen. orig. 1968. 1 videocassette (115 min.). Set in 1948 in a small Moravian village in which the citizens have been freed from the Nazis only now to have to deal with the communists. VHS 4696.

Zatykac na královnu = Summons for the queen. orig. 1973. 1 videocassette (110 min.). A mystery about murder and a black-market network begins with an anonymous tip to the police about a woman living far beyond her apparent means. Before she can be questioned, she is raped and murdered. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 4841.

Hungarian

Az én XX. századom = My 20th century. orig. 1989. 1 videodisc (102 min.). Amid the wonder and excitement of Thomas Edison's electric lights and other dazzling inventions at the turn of the century, two identical twin girls are born in Budapest, grow up and explore their worlds in very opposite ways. One embraces the erotic and becomes a femme fatale, the other becomes a bomb-throwing anarchist. VDD 103.

Godafton, Herr Wallenberg en passion historia fran verkligheten = Good evening Mr. Wallenberg : a passion taken from reality. Jewish Heritage Video Collection. orig.1990. 1 videocassette (115 min.). Raoul Wallenberg moved from Sweden to Budapest in late 1944 to help protect Jews from Adolph Eichmann's Sonderkommando. VHS 4101.

Mephisto. orig. 1981. 1 videocassette (132 min.). The story of a star's egotism, narcissism, and sexual opportunism. All are betrayed for political expediency in Hitler's Third Reich. Hendrick Hofgen, a young provincial German stage actor, realizes his purpose in life is only one thing -- success. To that end, he subordinates everything -- political conviction, human relationships, and artistic ambition. Following the Nazi takeover in Germany, Hofgen befriends The General, one of the principal figures of the Nazi power machinery. With every success, he is drawn into a poisonous circle of evil from which there is no escape. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 6218, DVD 328

Oberst Redl = Colonel Redl. orig. 1985. 1 videodisc (142 min.). "In the early part of the 20th Century, Alfred Redl ruthlessly rises from his peasant background to become a high-ranking member of the Imperial Austrian military. But when Redl is sent to spy on the Russian Empire, his espionage is compromised by his secret double life as a homosexual. As the world perches on the brink of was, Redl finds himself trapped in a web of deception where honor, grandeur and greed can only be betrayed by one final shocking act of fate" -- Container. German with optional English subtitles. DVD 908.

The Round-up. orig. 1965. 1 videocassette (90 min.). Set in 1868 in the newly-created Austro-Hungarian empire, the film is a savage and often ironic epic about the effects of imprisonment, fear, and torture in a police state. Twenty years after an aborted revolt, several hundred outlaws and peasants, remnants of Kossuth's revolutionary army, are rounded up and imprisoned in an isolated prison in hopes of identifying active rebels by having the prisoners betray each other. VHS 6219.

Polish

Andrzej Wajda portret. 1992? 1 videocassette (ca. 55 min.). Direct meeting between the viewer and Andrzej Wajda, the film director, the creative artist, the active politician and an extraordinary man. VHS 1936.

Austeria = The Inn. orig. 1983. 1 videocassette (ca. 110 min.). On the first day  of World War 1, a group of Jews flee from the Cossack army in Polish Galicia and find themselves trapped overnight in a border inn. Relationships develop, love affairs are snatched, the religious pray. VHS 2817.

Baryton = The Baritone. orig. 1985. 1 videocassette (98 min.). In the early 1930s, an opera singer who is near the end of his career returns to his native Poland. His artistic plans are thwarted by the growing power of the Nazis. Ineffective in resisting the Nazis, he tries to sing his last aria for a crowd that gathers at his hotel. VHS 2137.

Bez milo sci = Without love. orig. 1980. 1 videocassette (104 min.). Ewa, a young reporter bent on a spectacular career in journalism, gets a job on a prestigious weekly through connections. She is  unscrupulous in obtaining a story. VHS 2135.

Bilans kwartalny = The Balance. orig. 1975. 1 videocassette (99 min.). Marta is happily married, has a beautiful child and a good job, but life seems dull and monotonous.  She meets an old friend and falls in love with him because he is so different from her husband. VHS 1454.

Bohater roku = Hero of the year. orig. 1987. 1 videocassette (115 min.). Satirical comedy about Ludwik Danielak, hero of the earlier film "Top Dog." Danielak returns to show business after being sacked from his TV Job in 1981. By accident, he meets a man who prevented a gas explosion in a supermarket. He latches onto this man and tours the provinces as the manager of this "Hero of the Year." VHS 1455.

A Brivele der mamen = A Letter to mother. orig.1939. 1 videocassette (106 min.). One of the last films made in Poland before the Nazi invasion. Set in the Ukraine before World War I and New York City after, the film traces the break-up of a family due to stress, the chaos of war and the difficulties of immigrant life.  It focuses on one Jewish mother's efforts to keep her family together. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 5705.

Brzezina = The Birch wood. orig. 1970. 1 videocassette (115 min.). Film, an account of two brothers buried in the solitude of a remote forest, brings into focus one of Iwaszkiewicz's recurrent preoccupations, life overshadowed by intimations of death in which the only (most natural) way to stand up to death lies in romantic and physical love. Stanislaw is dying of tuberculosis; his brother, Boleslaw, is an unhappy widower with a little daughter. Stanislaw, in spite of his illness, remains cheerful and high-spirited, and even experiences a passionate love for Malina, a young peasant girl. Jealousy over his brother's happiness stimulates Boleslaw's lust for life and helps him forget his painful past. He also seeks solace in the arms of Malina. Stanislaw dies and is buried next to his brother's wife. Malina marries her fiance, a gloomy woodcutter, and Boleslaw is about to leave the forester's house and move to town with his daughter. VHS 1456.

Children must laugh. orig. 1936. 1 videocassette (94 min.). One of the few surviving documentaries depicting pre-war Jewish life in Poland. Life at the Jewish Labor Bund's Medem Sanatorium, a model residential children's institution, is contrasted with the overcrowded Warsaw Ghetto. The Medem Sanatorium, a symbol of health and enlightenment, existed from 1926 through August 1942 when the Nazis transported its residents to Treblinka where most perished. VHS 4570.

Chlopi = The Peasants. orig. 1973 2 videocassettes (184 min.). This is an account of a year in the lives of the Boryna family and that of the other inhabitants of their Mazovian village in central Poland during the late 19th century. The plot revolves around a father and his son's violent love for the same woman. VHS 2131.

Czlowiek z marmuru = Man of marble. orig.1977. 1 videocassette (160 min.). Film takes the form of an investigation into a man's life through recollections of several characters. A zealous young woman documentary filmmaker uncovers the explosive facts behind a once-celebrated worker's elevation to "stardom," his subsequent downfall and disgrace, and his eventual disappearance. Mateusz Birkut was a bricklayer who in the early days of the Communist revolution in Poland was hailed by the State as a national hero for his productivity feats and became as famous as any film star, only to disappear mysteriously from the record books in 1952. The story reveals the opportunism of the 1970s by examining the injustices in Stalinist Poland during the 1950s. VHS 2132.

Czlowiek z zelaza = Man of iron. orig. 1981. 1 videocassette (140 min.). The Polish Solidarity strike takes place at the Gdansk shipyard in the summer of 1980. An alcoholic TV journalist is ordered to smear one of Solidarity's key figures, coined the "man of iron."  Includes flashbacks of the 1968 and 1970 strike attempts. VHS 2842.

Danton. orig. 1983. 1 videocassette (ca. 150 min.). Georges Danton, the popular revolutionary leader, returns to Paris at a time when the new Republic is in disarray. Maximilien Robespierre and his allies have set up a monstrous dictatorship, beginning the infamous "Reign of Terror." Danton pleads with the people for an end to the bloodshed which violates the spirit of their revolution. VHS 61.

Dekalog, [I-X] Decalogue, [I-X]. orig. 1989. 2 video discs (660 min.). These ten films, loosely based on the Ten Commandments, focus on the complexities of human relationships.  The themes are the universal ones of love, marriage, infidelity, parenthood, guilt, faith and compassion. Decalogue I: A university professor trusts in the infallibility of the computer and instructs his young son in its use. Anxious to try out a new pair of ice skates, the two consult the computer to calculate the safety of the thickness of the ice on a nearby pond. A freak thaw results in unforseen and tragic consequences. -- Decalogue II: Dorota, who is pregnant by another man, visits her dying husband in the hospital. She asks the doctor for her husband's prognosis ¡ considering abortion should he live, choosing life for the fetus if her husband dies. By predicting the fate of the husband, is the doctor determining the life or death of the unborn child? -- Decalogue III: A married man's Christmas Eve festivities are interrupted when he is enlisted by an ex-lover to desert his family and spend time with her searching the streets of Warsaw as she looks for an errant new boyfriend. Under various pretexts, she manages to keep him out until 7 a.m., convinced that this will now make the life "normal.". Decalogue IV: A young woman discovers a sealed envelope in her father Michal's room that is marked "not to be opened before my death." Inside is a letter from her deceased mother, which reveals that Michal is not her biological father. -- Decalogue V: Jacek, a psychotic youth, randomly and brutally murders a taxi-driver. Arrested, he is given Piotr, a young lawyer, to defend him. Looks at the questions of whether an eye for an eye is just and does the legal system, in the name of the people and sanctioned by the government, have the right to kill. -- Decalogue VI: Tomek, a young post office worker, is obsessed with Magda, the promiscuous woman who lives in the apartment complex opposite his building. He spies on her through a telescope and takes a job as a milkman simply to hear her ask "Who is it?" thorough the door. Obsession turns to love, and a meeting proves dangerous and pivotal for both. Decalogue VII: Six-year-old Ania is being brought up by Ewa in the belief that Majka, Ewa's daughter, is her sister, whereas Majka is really her mother. Tired and saddened by the deception and desperate to have Ania love her as a mother, Majka "kidnaps" Ania and runs away, refusing to return unless she is allowed to raise her own daughter. -- Decalogue VIII: Elzbieta, researching the fate of Jewish war survivors, is visiting from New York and sits in on lectures in ethics at the University of Warsaw. Zofia, an ethics professor, is forced to acknowledge her past as Elzbieta reveals herself as the young Jewish girl whom Zofia refused to hide from the Nazis during the war. -- Decalogue IX: A once promiscuous, but now impotent doctor encourages his wife to take a lover. Consumed by jealousy that she may have taken his advice, he obsessively spies on her and learns of her relationship with a young student. Unaware that she has broken off the affair, the doctor resorts to drastic measures. -- Decalogue X: A black comedy of financially strapped brothers who unexpectedly inherit a small fortune when their father dies, leaving them the most valuable stamp collection in Poland. DVD 86.

Doktor Judym = Doctor Judym. Polish historical films. orig. 1967. 1 videocassette (94 min.). Doctor Judym, a young man of very low social status, has completed his studies in Paris. After returning to Poland, he is unable to find a job, and eventually is given the post of a doctor in a well known health resort. When the young doctor tries to concentrate on the poor, he runs into problems with the management of the resort. VHS 2133.

La Double vie de Veronique = The Double life of Veronique. orig. 1991. 1 videodisc (96 min.). Veronika, a young singer, lives in Poland while Veronique, a music teacher and aspiring singer, lives in Paris. Born on the same day they share the same appearance and talents and also the same sense that somewhere there exists another person with whom her life is intertwined. VDD 142.

The Dybbuk = Dybuk. orig. 1937. 1 videocassette (120 min.). Years after their parents had made a pledge that they would marry, a young couple meet and fall in love. The father of the young man had long before perished and the young woman's father keeps the two apart, ignoring his vow because he wants a wealthier son-in-law. The film concerns unfulfilled love, broken promises, and the supernatural, as the persona of the youth who has committed suicide enters his beloved's body at her wedding and possesses her. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 4486.

Dyrygent = The Conductor. orig. 1980. 1 videocassette (101 min.). In New York Jan Jasocki, a famous migr conductor, meets Marta, a visiting musician who is also the daughter of his first love. Nostalgic and homesick for Poland after 50 years abroad, he returns to conduct a local orchestra--the same orchestra he began with years ago. Conducting in Poland, however, is not what he had dreamed, and the concert becomes mired in government schemes to milk the political advantages of his return. VHS 2744.

Early auteur films the first shorts made by famous directors. 1 videocassette (121 min.). A collection of short films made early in the careers of Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Roman Polanski, Michelangelo Antonioni and Alberto Cavalcanti. All the boys...: College roommates become acquainted with Patrick on the same day in separate encounters. Each falls for his line and agrees to a later date with him. They do not realize they have dates with the same Patrick until later, when they see him with another girl -- Two men and a wardrobe: A fantasy-parable without commentary about the cost of private lives in the modern world, as portrayed in the adventures of two men who emerge from the sea with a dilapidated old-fashioned wardrobe -- Les Mistons: Focuses on the fantasies and exploits of five adolescent boys awakening to adult emotions who follow and torment two lovers. The hearts of the age: Made by Welles at the age of 19, intended as a parody of the surrealist movement. Welles appears as the figure of death -- Rien que les heures: An impressionistic study of Paris and its inhabitants -- The fat and the lean: A pantomised parable which satirizes man's desire to dominate other men -- N.U.: Nettezza urbana: Documents one aspect of city life that is often taken for granted as it shows street cleaners in Rome as they go about their daily work. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 5222.

Goraczka = Fever. orig. 1981. 1 videocassette (ca. 155 min.). The year is 1905 - a time of revolutionary fever, independence struggle, anarchism and political terrorism. Józef Piludski's Fighting Organization of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) wages armed struggle against the Czarist police, protects workers' demonstrations and stages bomb attacks on Russian dignitaries. Film follows a group of these committed anarchists as they try to use a bomb to blow up the Tsarist governor general. VHS 1457.

Innocent sorcerers = Niewinni czarodzieje. orig. 1960. 1 videocassette (86 min.). The fear of emotions a young doctor and a beautiful girl feel leads them to choose a one-night stand rather than a long-lasting relationship. VHS 6260.

Interrogation = Przesluchanie. orig. 1982. 1 videocassette (118 min.). Banned for eight years, film is a scathing condemnation of political systems that resort to any sort of torture to crush dissent. A cabaret singer in 1950s Warsaw has sexual affairs with high-ranking military officers. Suspected of abetting an anti-government movement, she is arrested and victimized by a Stalinist-style government. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 1863.

Kanal = Canal. The International collection: The Wajda triology. orig. 1957. 1 videocassette (96 min.). Second part of Wajda's "wartime trilogy" (the first was Pokolenie; the third, Popiol i diament). Set in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, a detachment of the Home Army is forced into the sewers where conflict and tension arise from the claustrophobic atmosphere below and the physical pressures of the German persecutors above. VHS 215 pt.2.

Kanalia = The Scoundrel. orig. 1990. 1 videocassette (88 min.). Taken from actual events, this harsh, bitter piece concerns a circle of Polish fighters in Lód z, 1910.  The film explores the shifting relationships between a terrorist and his bitter enemy. VHS 4010.

Kingsajz = Kingsize. orig. 1988. 1 videocassette (108 min.). The film tells the story of two worlds, Drawerland, which is populated with dwarfs, and Kingsize, which is inhabited by average sized people. Drawerland is a scrap-heap of civilization, providing only the bare fundamentals of existence for its exclusively male population, which devotes all of its time to collecting rancid garbage, to scheming, and to operating insignificant businesses. Within this odd society is a privileged ruling class which has access to a miraculous liquid, allowing it to freely move from the homogenous world of Drawerland to the pluralistic society of Kingsize, thus enjoying the most distinctive ingredient it offers - women. VHS 3199.

Klucznik = Housemaster. orig. 1979. 1 videocassette (85 min.). Film is an allegory of Poland. Just after World War II, the old order is gone, the new order is not yet formed.  An old count, living in his palace is deceived by his housemaster into thinking that all of his holdings are running as in the old days. VHS 2134.

Korczak. orig. 1990. 1 videocassette (118 min.). Tells the true story of Janusz Korczak, a renowned physician and author who ran a home for Jewish orphans in 1930's Warsaw. Eventually he is forced to move his home to the Warsaw ghetto.  Though the children will be deported to concentration camps, Korczak vows to remain with them till the end. VHS 2543.

Krzysztof Kie slowski = I'm so-so-. orig. 1995. 1 videocassette (56 min.). Uses film clips and a candid interview with the Polish filmmaker shortly before his death in 1996 to provide a penetrating look at a complex artist who confronted the anguish of Communism in Poland and helped define "the cinema of moral anxiety." In the interview Kieslowski describes his early life and the political and social events that influenced his filmmaking. VHS 5680.

Krzyzacy = Knights of the Teutonic Order. orig. 1960 2 videocassettes (142 min.). Historic epic set in 15th century Poland at the time of the Teutonic invasion. Film takes a dramatic look at the battle of Grunwald (1410) which was a victory for the Slavonic nation over the German invaders and offers a fascinating and vivid look not only at the battle but at the world of medieval customs and life. VHS 894.

Kung-Fu. orig. 1979. 1 videocassette (112 min.). Three friends help each other out. "A well-regarded engineer in a big enterprise is hounded by trumped up attacks on his integrity when he delves too deeply into how bonuses are handled by the management. He gets into an argument with a guard, is arrested and subsequently fired. An old friend, a journalist, tries to sort things out but the victim's stubbornness and past problems with his wife lead to losses by both." Summary from Polish Cinema Database [http:\\info.fuw.edu.pl/filmy/]. VHS 1458.

Lalka = The Doll. orig. 1968. 1 videocassette (159 min.). In 1872 Stanislaw Wokulski (Dmochowski), returns to Warsaw from the Balkan war full of energy and broad ideas for enterprising ventures. He becomes respected for his ability to make money but is still looked down on by the aristocrats as being without family connections or social rank. In his late forties, he is overwhelmed by his obsessive and destructive passion for the beautiful Izabela Lecka (the "doll") whose influential father he secretly helps financially. Izabela, while fascinated by his strong personality cannot truly appreciate him. VHS 1459.

Lotna. orig. 1959. 1 videocassette (89 min.). Set in 1939, film is an allegorical war drama that pays homage to the Polish cavalry that fought a heroic but losing battle against the might and tanks of the German invaders at the start of World War II. This history is symbolized by Lotna, a white thoroughbred horse, who passes from person to person in the military until she breaks her leg and is shot. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 4859.

Luk erosa = Cupid's bow. orig. 1987. 1 videocassette (119 min.). This erotic film, set in Krakow early in World War I, depicts a young woman's flaunting of social conventions when her husband is declared missing in action. VHS 2138.

Maskarada = Masquerade. orig. 1986. 1 videocassette (102 min.). Michal, a famous actor in an eccentric actors' community, tries to escape from the public by creating a dangerous theater without the audience, a psychodrama involving life and death.  A promising young actor named Jacek becomes immersed in this quest. VHS 2384.

Mistrz i Malgorzata = The Master and Margarita. orig. 1990. 4 videocassettes (373 min.). On the one hand film is the story of devils visiting soviet and antireligious Moscow, of true and victorious love, of Jesus meeting Pontius Pilate. It also, above all, offers the belief that the world is not so bad and that people, if only given a chance, are simply good. VHS 2385.

Noce i dnie = Nights and days. orig. 1975. 2 videocassettes (254 min.). Set in the second half of the 19th century, film looks at the unsuccessful 1863-64 Polish rebellion and its aftermath as seen through the lives of a single family. Their history is played out against the background of political events up to 1914, a time of crisis for old values and the birth of modern capitalism. Film offers a realistic picture of a society doomed to slavery, exile, and confiscation of property. VHS 1461.

Nóz w wodzie = Knife in the water. orig. 1962. 1 videocassette (95 min.). A middle-aged journalist and his wife invite a footloose young hitch-hiker aboard their sail-boat for a Sunday outing in the Polish lake district.  Like two peacocks, the men proceed to flaunt their virility before the woman, revealing a cynical sadism on the part of the husband and a growing resentment in the knife-wielding youth. VHS 2065, DVD 756

Pan Tadeusz. orig. 1999. 1 videocassette (157 min.). The film's plot revolves around a feud between two Polish gentry families living under Russian rule. Vengeance, thwarted love, lusty trysts, mind-boggling secrets, feasts, hunts, balls, and battles enliven the action, which unfolds amidst the Poles' hope that Napoleon's invasion of Russia will lead to the restoration of Polish statehood. VHS 6567.

Pan Wolodyjowski = Colonel Wolodyjowski. orig. 1969. 1 videocassette (160 min.). It is the year 1668. Broken-hearted and full of despair after the death of his beloved, Colonel Michal Wolodyjowski, the first swordsman in Poland, decides to change his uniform for a monk's habit. He and a friend try to defend the south-east of Poland against the Turks but are betrayed by the nobility who compromise with the Turks and surrendered the whole region. The two knights, bound by their vows, blow up their fortress and perish in its ruins. VHS 2136.

Panny z Wilka = The Maids of Wilko. orig. 1979. 1 videocassette (111 min.). In the 1930s Wiktor Ruben returns to Wilko, a place where he spent the holidays when he was younger. He arrives in a somber, depressed mood hoping to rekindle his spirits by reconnecting with the "maids" he knew when growing up. As days pass, Wiktor realizes he can't overcome the emotional distance that developed during his absence. VHS 2111.

Pociag do Hollywood = Train to Hollywood. orig. 1987. 1 videocassette (96 min.). A film that mixes fantasy with reality. While working in the dining car of a passenger train, a beautiful girl from a small Polish town dreams of becoming a movie star like Marilyn Monroe. She writes letters to Billy Wilder asking to be cast in his next film and befriends a color blind cinematographer who also has dreams of Hollywood. But when she gets a chance to make three wishes, she makes them not for her own dreams but for those of her friends. VHS 1462.

Pokolenie = A Generation.  The Wajda trilogy: Classics of the Polish cinema. orig. 1955. 1 videocassette (86 min.). Wajda's first feature film and the "first" of his "underground trilogy." [Other films are: (1) Kanal and (2) Popiol i diament]. Film follows the fortunes of one boy under the German Occupation who, along with an entire generation of Polish youth, took up the fight against the Germans with whatever means were at hand. A cocky Polish youth decides to fight the Nazis after he falls for a pretty resistance leader.  As he and his friends help escapees during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the innocence of a generation is lost under the grueling conditions of war. VHS 215 pt.1.

Polowanie na muchy = Hunting flies. orig. 1969. 1 videocassette (108 min.). A sensitive writer and translator, running from his wife and mother-in-law, encounters a modern, demanding woman. VHS 4018.

Popiól i diament = Ashes and diamonds. The Wajda trilogy. orig. 1958. 1 videocassette (105 min.). Third in the Wajda "wartime trilogy" after (1) Pokolenie and (2) Kanal. Portrait of a young Polish nationalist assassin who, when World War II ends, finds himself living uncertainly, moving from echoing bars to seedy hotel rooms, finding comfort in a girl and crazy jokes. Film captures all the bitterness and disillusionment felt by the Polish people during the political struggle that followed the war's end. VHS 215 pt.3.

Przepraszam, czy tu bija = Foul play. orig. 1976. 1 videocassette (98 min.). Belus, a young but ruthless criminal, selects partners for a new robbery. To foil his plans, the police coerce one of his men to inform on the gang in return for having charges dropped against him. VHS 1463.

Przez dotyk = At a touch. orig. 1986. 1 videocassette (ca. 85 min.). A cancer-stricken ballerina revives the will to live in her hospital ward-mate, a young victim of parental rape. VHS 2386.

Przypadek = Blind chance. orig. 1987. 1 videocassette (118 min.). Depicts three potential life stories of one man. First he is a party activist, then a dissident, and finally - a physician fulfilling his humanitarian duties. Then the plane he is on explodes. VHS 1464.

Psy = The Pigs. orig. 1992. 1 videocassette (112 min.). Two friends, Olo and Franz, secret police agents from the former system, are trying to find their place in the changing political scene in Poland. Olo receives an offer to join a gang involved in the amphetamine trade. Franz becomes an officer for a criminal unit within the police force. Despite their differences, they continue to be friends. They use Olo's contacts to break up the drug ring. VHS 4006.

Rece do góry = Hands up. orig. 1981. 1 videocassette (78 min.). In the 1960s, former Medic Academy students meet at a reunion of the tenth anniversary of their graduation. Encouraged by a letter from an absent friend, a group of four men and a woman decide to visit him. During their visit, they confront their bitter memories of the Stalinist period. VHS 1465.

Rosliny truj ace = The Poisonous plants. orig. 1985. 1 videocassette (70 min.). In this film resembling American gangster movies, set in a war-torn city that has lost its moral structure, a young journalist searching for a story encounters a juvenile prostitute, a man unjustly accused of murder, and a girl who grows poisonous plants. VHS 2139.

Tabu = Taboo. orig. 1988. 1 videocassette (ca. 150 min.). A love triangle set against an austere rural background. A mother and her daughter fall in love with the same man. Although the two women love each other, they are doomed to fatal rivalry and lust. VHS 2388.

Trois couleurs = Three colors, Blue. orig. 1993. 1 videocassette (98 min.). Devastated by the unexpected death of her husband and child, a young woman retreats from the world around her, but is soon drawn into a web of lies and passion as the secret life of her husband unravels. VHS 3821.

Trois couleurs = Three colors. Red. orig. 1994. 1 videocassette (99 min.). Story of a young model whose chance meeting with a stranger leads her into intrigue and secrecy.  She discovers an astonishing link between his past and her destiny. VHS 3823.

Trois couleurs = Three colors. White. orig. 1954. 1 videocassette (92 min.). In this black comedy, Karol, a Polish hairdresser is divorced by his beautiful French wife and thrown onto the streets of Paris, penniless and with no passport.  A fellow Pole smuggles him back into Warsaw in a suitcase.  Karol deals successfully on the black market until he has enough money to seek revenge against his wife, only to find love getting in the way of vengeance. VHS 3822.

Ulica Granicza = Border Street. orig. 1949. 1 videocassette (110 min.). The lives of several families from different social classes in a neighborhood of pre-war Poland are changed by tragic events of a period as an old tailor tries to save his daughters and others in the Warsaw ghetto. Culminates with the uprising of 1943, when Jews, supported by the Polish underground, take up arms and die fighting. VHS 327.

W starym dworkv = In an old manor house. orig. 1985. 1 videocassette (99 min.). Set at the turn of the century in a country manor house. Landowner Dyapanazy discovers that his wife Anastazja is having an affair with Jezory, the son from his first marriage. He kills her, but to everyone's astonishment, Anastazja's ghost returns to the manor, causing a commotion as she interferes with everyone's love life and continues her own. VHS 1466.

W zawieszeniu = Suspended. orig. 1987. 1 videocassette (95 min.). Set in the time of Stalinist terror in the late '50s.  Marcel has hidden in a cellar for years in order to escape the security forces.  His tragic story as a former Home Army soldier is a metaphor for the fate of the entire wartime generation of Poles. VHS 2387.

Yiddle with his fiddle. orig. 1936. 1 videocassette (92 min.). A classic Yiddish language musical-comedy. After they are thrown out of their home, a young girl fiddle player, disguised as a boy for safety, goes off to the Polish countryside with her musician father. They meet up with two other traveling musicians, one of whom is a young man. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 5715.

Ziemia obiecana. orig. 1975. 1 videocassette (161 min.). Three industrialists representing different ethnic groups in Poland (a Pole, a German and a Jew), build a textile factory in Lodz at the turn of the century, but encounter problems with overworked, underpaid workers. VHS 5433.

Znachor = The Quack. orig. 1938. 1 videocassette (ca. 132 min.). In Poland in the 1930s an outstanding surgeon suffers loss of memory, and finds himself in an outlandish village where he performs medical miracles. VHS 1467.

Romanian

Nunta de piatra = The Stone wedding. orig. 1972. 1 videocassette (85 min.). Two  bleak tales of pre-World War II Romania. In "Fefeleaga," a woman old beyond her years who has buried her husband and several children must now sacrifice to bury her last daughter. In "At a wedding," the wedding ends as the bride (who has been forced into a loveless marriage for her family's benefit) runs off with a gypsy musician, one of a group hired to play at the wedding. A military deserter who had joined the musicians is beaten to death by the wedding guests. VHS 4889.

Russian (including regions of the former Soviet Union)

Aleksandr Nevskii = Alexander Nevsky. orig. 1938. 1 videocassette (110 min.). Created as a propaganda piece in Stalinist Russia to raise the fears of the Russian populace about the threat of a German invasion, this artistic masterpiece by one of Russia's greatest directors tells the story of Russian folk hero Alexander Nevsky who united the peasants of Russia in 1242 to defeat invading Teutonic knights. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 2967, VHS 2967, DVD 385.

Andrei Rublev. orig.1969. 2 videocassettes (185 min.). Epic - and fictionalized - story of the 15th century monk and painter who survives the cruelties of medieval Russia - a period marked by endless fighting between rival Princes and by Mongol-Tatar invasions - to become a renowned creator of religious icons and frescoes. VHS 1918.

Anna ot 6 do 18 = Anna : from 6 to 18. International cinema. orig..1993. 1 videocassette (99 min.). Sets the collapse of the Soviet Union against the growth of Mikhalkov's daughter Anna over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1980. VHS 6529.

Arsenal. orig. 1928.1 videocassette (70 min.). Seen through the eyes of a humble Ukranian soldier, director Dovzhenko presents an account of the Ukraine from World War I and the following social upheavals, through the  Russian revolution, to the suppression of a worker's revolt in Kiev in 1918. Dovzhenko presents harsh, realistic scenes of Czarist brutality and war's destruction, but his juxtapositions of the Russian workers and peasants are considered both impressionistic and symbolic. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 4643.

Ashik Kerib = The Lovelorn minstrel orig. 1988. 1 videocassette (75 min.). Tale of a lovelorn musician, his travels and travails, and the eventual restoration of his mother’s eyesight as well as his winning the hand of his intended. Done in a highly stylized, theatrical fashion. VHS 5027

Bakenbardí = Sidewhiskers. orig. 1990. 1 videocassette (110 min.). Futuristic parable about the political future of Russia. The Pushkin Club is a group of reactionaries who affect 19th century dress and want to remove from Russia "the scum of Western influence." In this original, biting satire a warning about the rise of militarism and fascism in Russia is sounded. VHS 4702.

Balada o soldate = Ballad of a soldier. orig. 1959. 1 videocassette (85 min.). During World War II a young soldier refuses a medal following an heroic action and instead takes a ten day leave from the front to visit his mother.  During his travels by train, truck, and on foot, he witnesses the devastation of war and meets many people -- a crippled veteran, a comic sentry, faithful & faithless wives, and a girl with whom he falls in love. They travel together in a railway car and vow to meet when the war is over. VHS 6227

Bronenosets Potemkin = Battleship Potemkin. CinemaDisc collection. orig. 1925. 1 videodisc (74 min.). Considered director Eisenstein's most influential work, the film re-creates the 1905 mutiny on the battleship "Prince Potemkin."  The film includes the "Odessa Steps" sequence, widely thought of as the most famous film scene ever made, and reveals Eisenstein as the creator of editing and filming techniques not used until later on in the industry. VDD 94, HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 17, DVD 43

Chapayev. orig. 1934. 1 videocassette (94 min.). Considered a masterpieces of the Soviet cinema, film highlights the exploits of legendary, individualist Red Army general and strategist Vasily Chapayev. After the Russian Revolution, Chapayev, an illiterate Russian who served in the Czar's army, forms his own force to fight the White Russians during the 1919 Civil War. A stirring account of a beloved hero of the Russian Revolution and Stalin's favorite propaganda film that was also popular with intellectuals and the public. Film won several Russian state prizes. VHS 4644.

The Commissar. Soviet cinema today. orig. 1967. 1 videocassette (105 min.). In this drama set against the Russian Civil War, a tough Red Army commander's military career is disrupted by an unwanted pregnancy. Forced to stay with a poor Jewish family until her child is born, she finds herself transformed by the warmth and compassion of her hosts. She must ultimately decide whether to rejoin her troops or stay with her child. VHS 6531.

The Extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the Bolsheviks. Red silents : visions of a worker's state. orig. 1924 1 videocassette (78 min.). In this satiric film on America's slanted view of the Soviet Union, Mr. West is a bourgeois American who visits those "mad, savage Russians" on a dare. Once in Russia, he is faced with an onslaught of strange characters and events, thrusting him into a world of danger and intrigue. He soon concludes that only through his all-American ingenuity will he survive ... and then the farce begins. VHS 4207.

Freeze-die-come to life. orig. 1989. 1 videocassette (105 min.). A realistic look at the Stalinist era through the story of two children, a boy and a girl, who are growing up in a remote, brutal mining community near Vladivostock in the years immediately after World War II. VHS 4831.

The General line. orig. 1929. 1 videocassette (70 min.). Martha, a resident of a very poor Russian farming community, is converted to socialist agricultural principles and fights superstition and bureaucracy to create a cooperative in her community. VHS 267.

I am Cuba. Milestone Collection. orig. 1964. 1 videodisc (140 min.). Four main stories show the rise of the Communist revolution in Cuba, including Battista's Havana and the grinding poverty and oppression of the Cuban people. DVD 331, VHS 3819.

Idi i smotri = Come and see. Soviet cinema today. orig. 1985. 1 videocassette (142 min.). The horrific and harrowing experiences of a young boy coming of age during the brutal German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II. VHS 4834.

Ivan the Terrible. Eisenstein, the sound years: The Criterion collection: The Classic collection: orig. 1945 and 1958 . 2 videodiscs (184 min.). Part I starts with the coronation of Ivan the Terrible and concludes with his return to power after the death of his wife. Part II covers the attempt to assassinate him in 1564. The third part of the saga was never made due to the death of Eisenstein. DVD 386.

Katok i Skripka = The Steamroller and the violin. orig. 1960. 1 videodisc (43 min.). At the center of the film is the unlikely friendship between Sasha, a young boy who loves to play the violin, and Sergey, the macho driver of a steamroller. The film sidesteps sentimentality to give us a warm yet ironic look at two individuals who bridge differences in generations to form a powerful bond. DVD 581.

Kavkazskii plennik. World films: Orion classics. orig. 1996. 1 videocassette (99 min.). A Russian army patrol is ambushed by Caucasian rebels and two survivors are taken prisoner, by a local patriarch who is hoping to barter them for the release of his captured son. A bond of understanding develops between the soldiers and their captors, but it is broken when plans for their release go awry and a chain of violence and retaliation is precipitated. VHS 6555.

Kniaz Igor = Prince Igor. orig. 1970. 1 videocassette (ca. 115 min.). Borodin's epic opera reflects the 19th-century spirit of Russian nationalism. It describes the 12th century Polovtsian threat to Russia. This version was filmed in the steppes where the action is set. VHS 877.

Korol Lir = King Lear. orig. 1969. 1 videocassette (140 min.). A dramatization of William Shakespeare's play in which tragedy occurs when an old king divides his kingdom between his daughters. VHS 451.

Legenda Suramskoy kreposti = The Legend of Suram fortress. orig. 1984. 1 videocassette (89 min.). Based on ancient legend. The Georgians’ repeated efforts at building a fortress against invaders fail until a fortune teller remembers an old prophecy that the son of her erstwhile lover must be bricked up alive in order for the fortress to stand. The young man is faced with sacrificing himself to save his country. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 5026

Letjat zhuravli = The Cranes are flying. orig. 1957. 1 videocassette (95 min.). Dramatization of love and disloyalty during World War II. Boris' and Veronica's marriage plans are interrupted when Boris enlists in the Soviet army after the German invasion of Russia. She moves in with Boris' family and is seduced by his cousin Mark. Out of guilt she marries him. Unhappy in her marriage and still in love with Boris she leaves her husband to wait for Boris to return. Later she learns Boris has been killed in the war. She subsequently redeems herself by nursing the wounded amidst the terrible suffering of the Russian civilian population during the war. VHS 6228.

Lev Tolstoi = Leo Tolstoy. Soviet cinema today. orig. 1984. 1 videocassette (103 min.). Traces the turbulent life of 19th century Russian author Leo Tolstoy from his childhood through his stormy marriage to his death.  Includes quotations from Tolstoy's writings. VHS 2712.

Lilia navsegda. Mirovoe kino. orig. 2002. 1 videocassette (106 min.). Abandoned by her mother, sixteen year-old Lilya lives in desperate conditions in a derelict suburb of the former Soviet Union. Her sole friend is eleven year-old Volodya, himself an outcast. Set against a realistic backdrop of the world they live in, they fantasize of a life elsewhere. VHS 7826.

Malenkaya Vera = Little Vera. orig. 1988. 1 videocassette (110 min.). The story of a sullen, sultry teenager with few goals in life who is trying to deal with a brooding boyfriend, an abusive alcoholic father, an ineffectual mother and the futility of a life trapped in her small industrial town. VHS 6229.

Moscow does not believe in tears. orig. 1979. 1 videocassette (ca. 150 min.). The setting is 1958 Moscow and three young working-class country women have just arrived to pursue their separate dreams of work, love and success in the big city. The film looks back at how they have fared in the 20 years since. VHS 1365.

My name is Ivan. orig. 1962 1 videocassette (97 min.). An orphan boy serves the Russian army by reconnoitering behind enemy lines during World War II. VHS 7086.

Neokonchenaya piesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino = An Unfinished piece for a player piano. orig. 1977. 1 videocassette (100 min.). Assorted privileged characters gather at the estate of a general's widow for a weekend in the country. A disillusioned school teacher (and the widow's occasional lover) arrives with his wife and encounters his great youthful passion, Sophia, who has recently married a wealthy boor. Though disappointed in one another's course in life, they flirt with resurrecting the past while intensely experiencing despair about their futures. VHS 4832.

Nostalghia. orig. 1983. 1 videodisc (120 min.). A homesick Russian poet, Gorchakov, researching in Italy with the aid of a beautiful interpreter, Eugenia, arrives at a Tuscan spa, while there he encounters the local mystic, who sets him on a challenging task. DVD 138.

October. orig. 1928. 1 videocassette (102 min.). Depicts events and circumstances which culminated in the Russian Revolution of October 1917. Describes the Kerensky regime, the European theater of World War I, and discusses the conflicting plans and ambitions of various participants. DVD 1653, HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 430.

Offret = The Sacrifice. orig. 1986. 1 videocassette (145 min.). A dark and complex drama about redemption and the nuclear holocaust. When a middle aged intellectual in retirement on an island in the Baltic Seas witnesses signs of what he believes to be a nuclear holocaust, he offers to make the ultimate sacrifice in return for the salvation of mankind. VHS 2689.

Okno v Parizh = Window to Paris. orig. 1994. 1 videocassette (ca. 92 min). A young musician discovers a magic window which takes him from his rundown Russian apartment to the streets of Paris. VHS 4002.

Prestupleniye i nakazaniye = Crime and punishment. orig. 1969. 2 videocassettes (224 min.). Study of Raskolnikov, a poor, imperious, eccentric former law school student who believes that he is a special kind of superman - exempt from moral law. Driven by a desperate need for self respect, he kills an old pawnbroker and his sister with an axe. Obsessed with guilt and dreams of being caught, he is doggedly pursued by Porfiri Petrovich, a criminal investigator. Finally he is able to confess his crime, atone for it through suffering, accept the love of a former prostitute and fully embrace life and responsibility. VHS 5461.

Putëvka v zhizn = The Road to life. orig. 1931. 1 videocassette (100 min.). One of the earliest Russian sound films, Ekk dramatizes the problem of orphaned juvenile delinquents who have formed gangs in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and Civil War. After the repressive efforts of the government fails in its reformation efforts, a group of teachers gather them into collective homes where they are taught cooperation through useful work and recreation. These efforts result in the successful socialization of the children. VHS 4534.

Què viva Mèxico! = Viva Mexico! orig. 1979. 1 videocassette (85 min.). A video documentary of the history of Mexico, presented in four novellas: Sandunga, an exposition of Tehuantepec jungles and the peaceful lifestyles of their inhabitants; Manguei, a love story about a poor peon and his bride; Fiesta, devoted to bullfighting and romantic love; and Soldadera, a portrayal of the 1910 revolution in Mexico as depicted in the frescoes of Sigueiros, Rivera, and Orosco. VHS 6051.

Russian ark. orig. 2002. 1 videodisc (96 min.). A modern filmmaker magically finds himself transported to the 18th century where he embarks on a time-traveling journey through 300 years of Russian history. The first feature film ever created in a single take. DVD 689.

Shinel = The Overcoat. orig. 1959. 1 videocassette (73 min.). Based on Gogol's satiric look at bureaucracy, it is the story of a clerk with a simple life and modest ambitions who scrimps for months to buy a new overcoat only to find that not only does it change his social life but, ultimately, his destiny as well. On his way home from a party, his new coat is stolen by two muggers. When he seeks help from the police and bureaucratic authorities, he is ignored. Without his coat, he catches cold and dies. Soon there are reports of a ghost who is stealing coats from pedestrians. VHS 592.

Solyaris = Solaris. orig. 1972. 2 videocassettes (167 min.). On the water planet Solaris human space explorers encounter a unique and radical intelligence. Contact between man and this entity stretches the limits of reason and insanity, knowledge and comprehension. VHS 3415.

Stachka = Strike. orig. 1925. 1 videodisc (94 min.). Set in pre-World War I Tsarist Russia, the story depicts a strike by factory workers and its brutal suppression by the authorities. During the Tsarist regime, a worker in Moscow is unjustly accused of theft and commits suicide. When his coworkers call a strike in protest, management, the owners and the government dispatch infiltrators to attempt to break the strike. Unsuccessful, they call in the police and the strikers are slaughtered in a brutal confrontation. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 3873, DVD 170

Stalker. orig. 1979. 2 videodiscs (163 min.). "The film is based on the science-fiction novel 'A Picnic on the Roadside' by Russian sci-fi writers, the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Stalker is the man who knows a lot about the system of obstacles and traps in the Zone. He knows the way to the coveted room where any wish may come true. To find this room is the goal of Writer and Professor. The writer hopes to find inspiration there, the professor dreams of making a discovery." --from container. "At the center of an outlawed region called The Zone lies a mystical room altered by unnatural forces. Armed guards are the first in a series of lethal obstructions that prevent outsiders from reaching the place where fantastic powers can fulfill man's greatest desires. Only the Stalker can lead a scientist and writer through The Zone where an obstacle course of mental and physical barriers tests the limits of their endurance...." DVD 170.

Tini zabutykh predkiv = Shadows of forgotten ancestors orig. 1964. 1 videocassette (99 min.). An epic story of star-crossed love set against the historical pageantry of medieval Russia. VHS 6292.

Tret'ia Meshchanskaia = Bed and sofa. orig. 1927. 1 videocassette  (ca. 70 min.). Satirical film which points up the social consequences of the Soviet housing shortage.  A husband and wife invite a friend to live with them and sleep on the sofa, but soon the husband winds up on the sofa. When the wife becomes pregnant she considers but rejects having an abortion. Instead, tired of both men, she leaves alone, seeking a new life. A landmark film because of humor, naturalism, and its sympathetic portrayal of the woman. VHS 4423.

TSirk = Circus. orig. 1936. 1 videocassette (89 min.). Alexandrov's attempt at importing American musical comedy into Soviet film. Marion Dixon (Orlova), an American vaudeville performer who was driven from the U.S. due to her bearing an illegitimate black child  is now performing her act as a human cannonball in a circus in the Soviet Union when she falls in love with a Soviet acrobat. Her German manager von Kneischitz (Massalsky) knows of her illegitimate child and seeks to blackmail her. Love wins out and in the finale the cast, now joined by thousands of others, sing and march their way across Red Square. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 5209.

Utomlennye solntsem = Soleil troumpeur = Burnt by the sun. orig. 1994. 1 videocassette (ca. 134 min.). Nikita Mikhalkov directs and stars as Colonel S. Kotov, a hero of the Revolution, who is spending the summer of 1936 in the country with his young daughter (Mikhalkov's real-life daughter), his wife and her eccentric family.  But when his wife's childhood love suddenly appears, the idyllic summer day takes a surprising turn.  A lyrical film filled with beauty and warmth, it is also an indelible account of a man dedicated to family and fatherland, cruelly destroyed by political paranoia. VHS 4240.

Veselye rebiata muzykal naia kino-komediia = The World is laughing. orig. 1934. 1 videocassette (93 min.). A musical comedy which pits Kostia (Utesov) a good-hearted young shepherd with a fine voice and a Pan-like effect on all who hear him against the so-called "finer" stratum of society. Aniuta (Orlova) falls in love with him under the impression that he is a famous conductor. Kostia leaves a trail of mirth and mayhem from the seaside to the Moscow theater world until he bluffs his way onto the concert stage and finds harmony and lifelong love. VHS 5208.

Voina i mir = War and peace. orig. 1968. 3 videocassettes (360 min.). Follows the interconnected lives of a group of Russian aristocrats from 1805 to 1812. The personal stories, love affairs and philosophies of the major characters are told against the backdrop of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. HOME USE COLLECTION VHS 5300 pt. 1-3.

Wolga, Wolga = Volga, Volga. orig. 1938. 1 videocassette (102 min.). Love story in which the boy and girl quarrel over whether his classical music performance or her folk music performance will win the Moscow amateur talent show. VHS 3960.

Zemlia = Earth. Red silents. orig. 1930. 1 videocassette (69 min.). Inspired by a newspaper account, this Soviet film dramatizes the conflict between kulaks and peasants living on a collective farm in the Ukraine. Basil obtains a tractor for the village to share, and under his leadership the collective is successful, but he is assassinated by a landowner. His father asks for a "modern" funeral with songs by the young people of their new life. VHS 4310.

Zerkalo = The Mirror. orig. 1975. 1 videodisc (106 min.). Tarkovsky's looking glass is not merely cracked but shattered and we see the jagged, jumbled reflections of its shards, images of Tarkovsky's childhood mixed with fragments of his adult life--a child's wartime exile, a mother's experience with political terror, the breakup of a marriage, life in a country home--all intermingled with slow-motion dream sequences and poetic chunks of stark newsreels. DVD 137.

Serbian, Slovenian (and other regions of the former Yugoslavia)

Covek nije tica = The Man is no bird. orig.1965. 1 videocassette (80 min.). A machinist comes to town to help assemble the new equipment at the local smelter and becomes involved with the girl who rents him a room. While he is at the awards assembly to receive a medal for his work, the girl goes away with a truck driver, and heart-broken, the machinist moves on. VHS 6220.

Crna macka, beli macor = Black cat, white cat. orig.1998. 1 videocassette (129 min.). Grga Pitic and Zarije Destanov are two old friends--and rivals--who haven't seen each other in years. But a series of events beyond their wildest dreams leads to a raucously funny reunion filled with gypsy mobsters, dirty deals and shotgun weddings. VHS 6547.

Dom za vesanje = Time of the gypsies. orig.1988. 1 videocassette (136 min.). Mixing magical realism, visual humor and dramatic pathos, film tells the story of Pheran, a life-loving teen with telekinetic gifts. He is in love with the girl of his dreams but her family rejects him because he is impoverished. Lured by promises of wealth, he leaves his beloved Grandmother and girlfriend to join the gang of Ahmed, a flamboyant criminal with a scam for all seasons, as they move around Europe. VHS 5751.

Gorilla bathes at noon. orig.1993. 1 videocassette (83 min.). "... examines the Soviet Union's collapse through the goofball misadventures of one Russian soldier stranded in East Berlin after the fall of the wall ... Makavejev shows us part of the sea of change in Eastern Europe by following the absurdly optimistic Major Victor Borisovich after his entire army unit deserts."--Container. VHS 6550.

Innocence unprotected = Nevinost bez zastite. orig.1968. 1 videocassette (78 min.). Documentary filmmaker Dusan MaKavejev combines the first Serbian talkie (made in 1941 but never released) featuring Yugoslav strongman Dragoljub Aleksic performing heroic deeds and stunts with interviews made twenty years later with the surviving cast members and with World War II newsreels and interviews resulting in a black comedy that mocks authoritarianism. VHS 1723.

Ljubavni slucaj, ili, Trajedija sluzbenice ptt = Love affair, or, The Case of the missing switchboard operator. orig.1967. 1 videocassette (70 min.). The story of a young switchboard operator, Isabella, who falls in love with Ahmed, a sanitary worker. She lives with him until she gets seduced by a younger, more glamorous man. VHS 6548.

Montenegro. orig.1981. 1 videocassette (97 min.). Marilyn Jordan is a repressed wife trapped in an unloving household who is slowly slipping into quiet madness. Through a mix-up at the airport, she loses track of her husband and misses their flight. She falls in with a bizarre band of Yugoslavian immigrants celebrating the New Year and takes a charismatic young zoo keeper named Montenegro for a lover. VHS 4326.

No man's land. orig. 2001. 1 videodisc (97 min.). Set during the height of the Bosnian War in 1993, a group of Bosnian soldiers are advancing on Serb territory under the cover of a foggy night. At daybreak, the fog lifts, and the Serbs open fire. Soon there is only one Bosnian survivor because he was able to dive into a trench in no man's land. He then watches as two Serbian soldiers use the body of a fallen Bosnian to bait a land mine. He fires on them, killing one, and taking the second hostage. Now both are alone and equally armed, so they are forced to share a wary trust as they try to attract help from either side. DVD 398.

Otac na sluzbenom putu = When Father was away on business. orig. 1985. 1 videocassette (144 min.). It's an open secret that father has been sent away to the mines for fooling around with the voluptuous object of desire of a Communist Party Official. That's the way things were in 1950's Yugoslavia -- loose lips and loose hips could be equally incriminating. Six-year-old Malik, however, thinks Papa is away on business. As seen through his eyes, the film magnifies the emotions of his new and giddy experiences, punctuated by family trips to visit his beloved Papa. VHS 5249, DVD 1372.

Siberian Lady Macbeth fury is a woman. orig. 1961. 1 videocassette (93 min.). Shakespearean tragedy collides with film noir in a remote Russian village in this dark fable from celebrated Polish filmmaker Andrzek Wajda ... Siberian Lady Macbeth observes the cruel machinations of Katarina, a ruthless woman who will let nothing threaten her affair with a mysterious drifter. VHS 4004.

Underground. orig. 1995. 1 videodisc (167 min.). A tragicomedy about love, friendship, betrayal, manipulation and lies. Deals with the conflicts of Yugoslav history of the past fifty years. The story starts from an underground manufacture of weapons of Belgrade, during WWII. The black marketeer who smuggles the weapons to partisans forgets to mention to the workers that the war is over, and they keep producing. 50 years later, they become suspicious, and break out of their underground "shelter"--Only to convince themselves that the guy was right: the war is still going on. DVD 1342.

W.R mysteries of the organism. orig. 1971. 1 videocassette (84 min.). Blends fact and fiction. It combines the story of the sexual encounter between the beautiful, liberated Milena and a figure-skating champion with an exploration of the life and theories of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. VHS 3007.