Gvintovka
The Black Council gives a vivid picture of the different levels of society in seventeenth-century Ukraine. The main theme is the need for people to be motivated by high ideals as they engage in the struggle of truth with injustice.
Владимир Николаевич Петровский, следователь
On the way to Partisans camp Sgt. Tsybulya suddenly lands in the middle of German troops. Now he must find a way to return to the Red Army.
Николай Бушуев
Semyon Likholay
A story about a heroic nurse working for Soviet Intelligence during and after WWII.
Historical and military film about the exploits of fighters during Kyiv defense against the onset of the Nazi troops. In virtually hopeless situation soldiers fulfilled their duty to the end. Capture of Kyiv was the first Pyrrhic Hitler’s victory that in the end led to defeat of Germany during the war.
Laertes
Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as the "stone prison" of the mind wherein Hamlet must confine himself in order to avenge his father's death. Hamlet himself is portrayed (by Innokenti Smoktunovsky) as the sole sensitive intellectual in a world made up of debauchers and revellers. Several of Kozintsev directorial choices seem deliberately calculated to inflame the purists: Hamlet's delivers his "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his back to the camera, allowing the audience to fill in its own interpretations.
