Scam in Russian

18 directors, 18 novels, 18 short stories about Moscow...

About the life of a major guy who ends up in the army, rethinks his life and helps his grandfather save his house.

September of 1944, a few days before Finland went out of the Second World War. A chained to a rock Finnish sniper-kamikadze Veikko managed to set himself free. Ivan, a captain of the Soviet Army, arrested by the Front Secret Police 'Smersh', has a narrow escape. They are soldiers of the two enemy armies. A Lapp woman Anni gives a shelter to both of them at her farm. For Anni they are not enemies, but just men.

The naive school teacher Lena suddenly loses both her job and her husband. "The problem is definitely in me," she decides, and on the advice of a friend, she signs up to reshape herself for the "Become a Goddess" training. The result is obvious: a new image and a loving admirer Andrey. It's just not clear whether Lena managed to find herself, and whether something very important was lost in the process.

Dmitriy is a popular actor, a star of action films. The public loves him for his image of a macho with an impenetrable face. One day, Dmitriy receives an offer from a stern but very rich businessman from Siberia, Sergey, to star in a crime drama about the 90s in the lead role of a cold-blooded killer. Sergey offers Dmitriy's agent a fee 10 times higher than usual. They agree. During the filming, Dmitriy is accidentally wounded by a shot. After a simple operation, he is ready to return to the frame, but faces an unexpected side effect: now he constantly smiles, and any emotions are expressed with laughter. Dmitriy has no chance to stop filming and "upset" Sergey, who clearly knows firsthand what he is making a movie about.

Viktor Suslov finds himself back in the maelstrom of family passions: now he lives under the thumb of a new mother-in-law, with her single-handedly established rules and strict house rules. An already difficult life is disrupted by the sudden arrival of Viktor's twin brother, Tokha. The domestic "idyll" is bursting at the seams when, not without the participation of the mother-in-law, the former enmity of the two brothers flares up again. The situation is aggravated by the appearance on the doorstep of FSIN officers looking for Tokha.

Sergei and Simon have to deliver a suitcase full of heroin to Mikhalych or else they will be killed. There is one minor detail: the only problem-solving technique they are familiar with is a shot in the head.

Olga Gavrilova and her young boyfriend Kirill come to the ski resort to celebrate the New Year, but due to a travel agency mistake they find themselves under the same roof with Olga's ex-husband Fyodor and his charming girlfriend Marinochka. A romantic New Year's weekend threatens to turn into a nightmare for both couples, so Olga and Fyodor decide to hide from their new passions that they were once married.

Now the peculiarities of the national hunt are investigated during the winter season.

The second part of the film “About Love”. Moscow, summer 2016. A new lecture, a new lecturer with a new theme: “How to preserve love in the modern world” – and five new stories about love. The heroes still suffer, struggle for love, even more often get into absurd and ridiculous situations, and yet they trust in love even more.

Anna, a sociology student from a prosperous family, must pass her internship and goes outside to conduct a study, during which it is necessary to find out how modern Russians see their future.

When Deni, a Labrador, lands a major advertising contract and moves in with his agent, Andrey, he and his cat friend, Manny, who are used to being together, find themselves separated for the first time. Immersed in the dazzling world of show business, Deni gradually realizes that no amount of success can replace family, and that sincerity is more valuable than any contract. Meanwhile, Andrey is going through a crisis in his relationship with his fiancée, and it is Deni who helps him rediscover his faith in love.

Three friends, Naika, Zhenya, and Alisa, embark on a traditional spa weekend to escape their routine and family roles, but especially their mothers-in-law. Their plans are ruined when Naika's future mother-in-law, Margarita Pavlovna, unexpectedly joins them, and the three friends' escape from reality and everyday life turns into a true test of their friendship. It turns out they all view life differently.

The bureaucratic epos on the dialogues and plots of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin "The History of a Town". In a metaphorical and grotesque form, the film conveys the history of Russia from the calling of the Varangians until the end of the 20th century. The film traces the change of the “chiefs” of the county town of Glupov, which differ in varying degrees of tyranny and the corresponding total number of “killed” city residents. The heads of the city easily guess the former heads of the Russian state and the USSR.

On New Year's Eve, Pavel mistakenly takes someone else's coat, in which he finds expensive jewelry. At home, he realizes that his daughter's letter to Santa Claus remains in the pocket of his lost coat. The father of the family, together with his wife, is trying to find out what exactly the girl wished for. But six-year-old Varya is afraid to talk about her dream, otherwise it won't come true. In order to preserve the child's faith in miracles, parents will have to find a letter that was lost in the vast city of Moscow, and at the same time return the found gift.

Nikita Kryukov is a successful hockey player in the past, who ended his sports and then his agent career because of his uncontrollable anger. No one is ready to work with him. Suddenly, he receives a message about his mother's death. He breaks off to his hometown. But it turns out that this message was sent by the mother's youngest daughter from her second husband. After his father's death, Nikita almost immediately went to Moscow, and then to America, and all this time he did not communicate with his mother — he could not forgive the fact that she almost immediately got together with another.

A satiric comedy which dissects the iconography of the 'Soviet Hero'. Original footage of a propaganda film from 1941 is the starting point for this parody of the ideological cliches of Soviet cinema. It follows the story of a Russian crew across the North Pole.

After a major scandal on air, popular TV host Mark Nikolaev tries to restore his reputation and sets out to find Natasha, an orphanage graduate whose victory on a music show sparks a public conflict. However, his attempt to "fix the situation" unexpectedly changes him, forcing him to confront real life for the first time outside the cameras and social media.

A restaurant in Moscow is forced to shut shop after they end up ruining a crucial political dinner involving the president. The entire team then decides to relocate to Paris to redeem themselves.

Three young women living in Moscow found out that their partners are married to other women. Coping with this news at the bar, they decide to seek revenge for each other. When the job is done, it turns out that there are thousands of women caught in the same situation, hurt and cheated on by unfaithful husbands. All of these offended women want revenge. Our ladies can help with this.

A local female football team works together to get through hard times and overcome sexual prejudice. Their strength is tested when they lose not only the games, but also their beloved coach who was the core of their team. But they work together to seek financial support, achieve victories, and respect.

Mitya accidentally proposed to his girlfriend. The problem is that Mitya is already married to Vasya, who refuses to grant him a divorce. Can Mitya and his friends convince Vasya to change her mind?

In 1991, Russia discovered big money. In 2011, money is everything… Present-day Moscow. A bag with a million euros in cash is stolen form the car of a successful business man “with connections.” Going from one happy owner to the next, the moolah changes hands quickly… And it all began when the millionaire Grigory refused to declare his taxes.

The story of a dispute between two friends, screenwriter Guerra Tonino and director Federico Fellini, about creating the shortest script, 10 seconds long, based on real events.

A struggling writer in 1930s Soviet Moscow finds his life transformed when a mysterious professor arrives with his bizarre entourage, including a wisecracking trickster, a deadly assassin, a vampire maid, and a giant talking black cat, turning the city upside down while exposing the hypocrisy of those in power.

Early 18th century. Cartographer Jonathan Green undertakes a scientific voyage from Europe to the East. Having passed through Transylvania and crossed the Carpathian Mountains, he finds himself in a small village lost in impassible woods. Nothing but chance and heavy fog could bring him to this cursed place. People who live here do not resemble any other people which the traveler saw before that. The villagers, having dug a deep moat to fend themselves from the rest of the world, share a naive belief that they could save themselves from evil, failing to understand that evil has made its nest in their souls and is waiting for an opportunity to gush out upon the world.

A boy and his friends must save his infant sister from an evil witch who eats babies.

In a Russian coastal town, Kolya is forced to fight the corrupt mayor when he is told that his house will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help, but the man's arrival brings further misfortune for Kolya and his family.

By the middle of the 12th century, the borders of the Mongolian Empire stretched from the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas in the west to the southern lands of China in the east. The Mongolian army, under Khan Batu’s command, was known for its invisibility, destroying anyone who dared to challenge them. Yet, even within their central territories, some areas refused to bow to the Genghisids. Kozelsk was one of them. The Mongolian armies bypassed the high walls of this small town, considering that "the skin of the wolf was not worth the risk of encountering its teeth".However, one of the Khan’s commanders harbored a grudge against the town's citizens. Now, the people of Kozelsk must face a battle against the strongest army in the world, with no hope of victory. This is a story about people facing their death. Some try to escape, others are willing to do anything to survive, but most are prepared to protect their city from the relentless storms of the Mongolian hordes.

Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, to turn the page – even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears.

One dark winter evening, the young tsar Saltan was lucky enough to find himself a tsarina from a simple Russian family. He was so impressed by the speech of the young charmer that he married her the same evening, and took her two sisters with him to the palace as servants. However, the treacherous girls do not share the happiness of their luckier sister and begin to plot. Saltan leaves for a long military campaign, during which the young queen gives birth to his son. The evil sisters write a dispatch to the tsar, where they brazenly lie about the child: they say, the queen gave birth to someone unknown, "neither a son nor a daughter." Saltan is upset, but orders to wait until his return. The sisters substitute the letter, and as a result, the girl and her son are sealed in a wooden barrel and thrown into the ocean in the best sadistic traditions.

A story of a legendary battle, where seventeen fearless warriors defend their land against an army of thousands well-trained soldiers. In 13th-century Mongol warrior hordes and their leader, Batu Khan, control most of the known world. As the Mongols move towards Europe they invade the last Russian principality standing in their way. Little do they know, their plans are about to be ruined by a small detachment of heroic strong men led by a mysterious brave warrior. This is a story about courage, endurance and self-sacrifice for the sake of one's country. This is the story of Evpaty the Furious.

The story of a hero who grew an apple orchard for people.

Eight years after his family was murdered he has returned home to bury his past and discover his future.

Two years have passed since Sasha left the orphanage. It is difficult for her to adapt socially, she perceives the world as a hostile environment. Since childhood, the girl has been used to defending her right to life and solving problems through fights – she spends all her free time in the basement hall in the ring for fights without rules. Despite the fighting nature and hobbies, deep down Sasha dreams of exactly the opposite: not to cripple people, but to treat them. But there is no money for studying at a medical school, and they do not take people to a hospital without an education. Fate brings her together with a disabled teenager Kolya, whose mother is torn between her son, work at a fish factory and a policeman boyfriend, and tries to find a nurse for her son. This meeting radically changes the lives of all the heroes.

977 is a coded number relating the attempt to “test the harmony with algebra”, to figure out the mathematical regularities of emotional and spiritual realms of human being. The characters have volunteered for the experiment to be put through not only scientific researching, but also through the everyday trials of friendship, love, attractions, envy and “the strongest of affects” – the curiosity. Thus, the scientific experience turns into human one, and a result is unpredictable…

There are two of them: a mother and a girl. They have no names. And they are in a constant run. The mother runs away from the daughter in an attempt to start new life, and the girl runs after her mother as she has no idea how to live without her. This endless run is full with repeated mistakes and resembles a barrel-organ sorrowful song or a spinning-top rotation. This small ridiculous toy "volchok" was the first toy in the girl's life, the only thing that tied her with the mother.

A group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, to find the right path to progress. Their task is a difficult one: they cannot interfere violently and in no case can they kill. The scientist Rumata tries to save the local intellectuals from their punishment and cannot avoid taking a position.

The holiday season in the mountains is in full swing. The message of the head of the avalanche station that an avalanche could soon descend is not taken seriously: neither by vacationers, nor by the director of the camp site. Reckoning for recklessness comes very soon: an avalanche goes directly to the hotel. Only the experience and courage of rescuers helps to avoid great casualties.

Sergei and Kira were considered the most beautiful bohemian couple among cinema lovers of Saint Petersburg in the early 90’s. Their fantastic love affair ended with Kira leaving town, fleeing for new life, new relationship. Sergei has died shortly after. Only after a few years does Kira realize that she never stopped loving Sergei. And that she’s doomed to stay in a neverending dialogue with a dead lover.

Rita is a naive 18-year-old from the sticks who has come to Moscow to meet up with the man who impregnated her a few months earlier. Unfortunately, his name and address was written on a piece of paper in her luggage, which was promptly stolen upon her arrival in Moscow. Thus, she is a bit at loose ends, and going back home is clearly not an option.

Srubov is a part of CHEKA, the secret police Lenin established after the Bolshevik Revolution. They arrest, interview for a minute, try in ten seconds, and execute intellectuals, aristocrats, Jews, clergy, and their families. In the building basement, five people at a time are shot as they stand naked facing wooden doors. No one to remember their last words; no martyrs, just anonymous bodies. Daily, the kangaroo court, the executions, the loading of bodies onto wagons. Srubov is cold, distant, sexually dysfunctional, and a deep thinker, hated by former friends and his family. As he tries to reason the nature of revolution and the purpose of CHEKA, he slowly goes mad.

Epic film about WWII, a sequel to Utomlyonnye solntsem (1994). Evil Stalin is terrorizing people of Russia while the Nazis are advancing. Russian officer Kotov, who miraculously survived the death sentence in Stalin's Purge, is now fighting in the front-lines. His daughter, Nadia, who survived a rape attempt by Nazi soldiers, is now a nurse risking her own life to save others. In the war-torn nation even former enemies are fighting together to defend their land. People stand up united for the sake of victory. Written by Steve Shelokhonov

Contemporary Moscow. After his girlfriend leaves him, a writer dives into a cinematographic world of fantasy.