Alexey Venzos

Globalisation, politics, and religion are ruthlessly stamping out the last remnants of traditional culture in Tajikistan. Today, many of these ancient traditions survive only in the mountains, where music and dancing still accompany people in joy and sorrow, just as they did a thousand years ago. After hearing a recording of a Tajik instrument called the maddoh many years ago, British musician Leo Abrahams was struck by its unusual beauty, and travelled to Tajikistan in an attempt to hear the music in person. In Rhythms of Lost Time, Leo travels the country and meets local residents, who introduce him to the hospitable and rich culture of Tajikistan. Together, they draw back the curtain on the challenges that traditional culture and the Tajik people have faced both in the past, and in the present day.

Natasha, 36, awaits a court verdict that is to decide whether for the next eight years she is to stay under police observation. Persons like her are called repeat offenders: She committed a new crime, even though she had been released on parole. “Lost trust” — this legal formula has become the real punishment for the main character. These six months is the main penitentiary term of her lifetime, the last chance to feel life in all its versatility, and she makes a list of all things she needs to cram into that short timespan: a rock concert, a ballet, a soccer championship, going to the seaside, meeting up friends, and, most importantly, meeting her father to whom Natasha did not have the courage to tell the truth about her second imprisonment.

The film was conceived as a story about the history of the Gogol Center Theater and the case of Kirill Serebrennikov. But the circumstances were different. This is a film about a film that could not be made.

Story of Gulnara, mother of 142 children, who is being sued by union officials' for child trafficking, sexual and labour exploitation. The object of the claim is the Issyk-Ata resort property, famous for its healing mineral geothermal hot springs, which was donated to Gulnara's orphanage by businessman Afanasy in the 90s, who then renounced the world to enter a convent for personal reasons.

In contemporary Russia there exists a hidden world - a world of magic and enchantment. Magicians have to hide from the nonmag society surrounding them, a society they are disdainful of, some even hostile towards. The Master of the Guard of the Supreme Council of Magic and Enchantment, Bakhrushin, loses his magic abilities and must not only avoid revealing this, but also prevent the war brewing between the magicians and the nonmagi.

A year after the loss of her mother's son comes the news: her son is in Ingushetia.