Roman Polanski’s 1962 short Ssaki is a Surrealist tale of co-operation and compassion. The two characters (Henryk Kluba and Michal Zolnierkiewicz) wander across the snowy wonderland. We don̵...
Jerzi Grotowski, a Polish stage director and theatre philosopher, even got to study at the Lunacharsky Institute of Theatre Arts for two years in 1950s. Although they evidently didn’t miss him g...
I watched The Man Who Saved the World in November 2005. The first time we observe someone’s attempt to go out of their way to replicate something it usually makes us laugh. So, I guess the attit...
Chuck & The Dirty Dog, Moscow, July 2011 In Chelyabinsk (that’s a city in Southern Ural in Russia) they are celebrating John Lennon’s 71st birthday on October 10. Paul McCartney is tyi...
The 4-mins short about a man whose life quite literally spirals downwards at a neck-breaking speed was once selected for Sundance Film Festival programme. This appears to be a story of a suddenly inad...
Before Paris, Je T’Aime was ever conceived, Claude Lelouch declared his love for all three at once – a city, the cinema, and a woman. As the note at the start of his short film says, the f...
I have recently discovered one of Roman Polanski’s earliest works – it is a 1959 short, Gdy Spadają Anioły (When Angels Fall). You may already notice his interest in the neurotic, the funn...
Today Russia celebrates the Day of the Radio. On this day (May 7) in 1895 Alexander Popov demonstated his invention, and so Communications Industry was born. There was still a bit of a walking to do t...
I cannot imagine anyone who wouldn’t love Italy. If you don’t like its Etruscan, or Roman, or early medieval past, you may surely love the Italian Renaissance. Or you may love the Italian ...
In 1987 Alla Sourikova, one of the “big” female names in Soviet/Russian cinema, made a comic interpretation of the story of the Wild West and the introduction of celluloid film to the Unit...