A young writer brings a collection of short stories to a big Moscow publishing house. The manuscript stays at the office and mysteriously influences the lives of anyone who opens it and reads at least one page. There are four stories in the manuscript, and four readers whose lives are changed after reading them. The situations range from realistic to absurd to thrilling to create a rich portrait of life in contemporary Russia and showcase the thoughts, feelings and ambitions of people who live there.

A mysterious Dark Horseman slays young girls near the village of Dikanka, and he has already butchered 11 ladies. Nikolai Gogol, a scribe from Saint Petersburg has to take charge of the investigation, but the closer he gets to solving the case, the more fits he has, causing macabre visions. When he learns the next victim is his beloved, Liza, he doubts that he can protect her and resist the murderer. Fortunately, he meets somebody who can help him: Khoma Brut, the witch hunter, martial artist and philosopher. Together they spend three dreadful nights in an old chapel reading the funeral service for Ulyana, the witch, and calling upon the ghastly evil spirit Viy.

A traveling magician and his assistants are persecuted by authorities in 19th century Sweden. Their capture, however, didn't bring victory to those in power.

Set in 1979, following a young Communist man's relationship with a gay Catholic writer, exploring tolerance, inclusion, homophobia and challenging its Cuban audience with great humour. Based on the short story by Cuban writer Senel Paz.

A seven-hour epic adaptation of the novel by Leo Tolstoy. The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.

1829: Nikolay Gogol, troubled Third Section clerk, burns his own books. Epileptic seizures plague him. Investigator Yakov Guro discovers Gogol's visions hold crime-solving clues. Together, they tackle a baffling case in Dikanka, where everyone hides a dark secret.

A virtuous and passionate girl falls in love with a cynical but a dashing aristocrat.

Mycroft Holmes hands Sherlock Holmes the case of the Master Blackmailer.

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

A young Polish filmmaker sets out to find out what happened to Mateusz Birkut, a bricklayer who became a propaganda hero in the 1950s but later fell out of favor and disappeared.

The employees of a radio station in Moscow are forced to organize the elections campaign for a future governor in one of Russia districts.

Soon after Gogol's death, Binh names him guilty for the deaths of the Cossacks and the young women at the hands of the Dark Horseman, since he was the one who ordered them to be hidden in the barn. Bomgart is unable to perform a post-mortem analysis on the Gogol's body, while Vakula's daughter Vasilina (who secretly has magic abilities) proclaims denial about Gogol's demise.

St. Petersburg, early 20th century. The handsome and secretive Johann specializes in shooting erotic pictures depicting the floggings of bare-bottomed women. With the help of his assistants, the photographic creations gradually penetrate the peaceful households of two upper-class Russian families.

A young man drops out of university and goes to the police. He's done nothing wrong he just wants a job. A particular job. Playing the victim in murder reconstructions. Maybe by getting close to death he can manage to cheat on his own.

A scientist builds a time machine and accidentally sends his apartment complex manager and a petty burglar to 16th century Moscow, while Tsar Ivan the Terrible travels to 1973.

A day in the life of a comic book artist and his family in Russia. While suffering from the flu, Petrov is carried by his friend Igor on a long walk, drifting in and out of fantasy and reality.

An unscrupulous debt collector who is a prominent member of the Moscow elite has just a few hours to refute an accusation that might cost him his job and his life.

Alice-type Soviet girl, named Olya meets her counterpart Yalo, while looking into the mirror. Yalo is an absolute antipode to Olya, for example where Olya is precise and neat, Yalo is absent-minded, careless, etc. The explicit plot relates to Olya learning to see herself differently, but this occurs through an experience in the Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors which serves as a mechanism for commenting on the ability of a society to manufacture a false reality. Based on a story with the same name by Vitali Gubarev.

Very loosely based on Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’, this is the story of a writer renting a room at a single mother’s house that starts an affair with the daughter of her.

A fairy tale about a conceited young man and a young woman with a tyrannical step-mother, who must overcome magical trials in order to be together.

In 1919, Hungarian Communists aid the Bolsheviks' defeat of Czarists, the Whites. Near the Volga, a monastery and a field hospital are held by one side and then the other.

Third film based on Boris Akunin's "Priklucheniya Erasta Petrovicha Fandorina" series of novels. On a train from St. Petersburg to Moscow general Khrapov was killed and no one else but Erast Petrovich is under suspicion because the killer pretended to be Fandorin. There are initials BG on the handle of the knife Khrapov was stabbed with, the initials belong to a terrorist organization which keeps both capital cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg) in fear. This time Fandorin is not the only one trying to solve the crime, general Pozharski, a famous detective takes over the investigation...

The heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.

A young aristocrat, Aleksei Fedyashev, is languishing in his family's country estate, spending his days reading poetry and confessing his love... to a statue. Upon hearing that famous Count Cagliostro is touring Russia and has created quite a buzz in high society with his "magic", he decides to ask the Count to bring the statue to life...

Rasputin, a crazed and debauched monk wreaks havoc at the local inn one night, chopping off the hand of one of the drinkers. As the bitter locals plan their revenge, the evil Rasputin works his power over the beautiful women who serve at the Tsar's palace. Even the Tsarina herself is seduced by his evil ways and, as his influence begins to dominate government policy, there is only one course of action left... to destroy him before he destroys them all.

Álvaro, a man obsessed with the idea of writing what he brands as “high literature,” manipulates the lives and feelings of the people around him to write about the consequences caused by his devious acts.

A Russian poet, Andrei and his interpreter, Eugenia travel to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer.

Into an era seething with war and revolution, a man comes with an incredible power to heal a nation...or destroy it. Based on the true story of one of the most powerful and mysterious figures in Russian history.

A rebellious young woman with cerebral palsy leaves India to study in New York. On her journey of self-discovery, she unexpectedly falls in love.

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.

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.

The invasion of a village in Belarus by German forces sends young Florya into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha, who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Florya finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.

After upsetting the criminal underground in 'the Master Blackmailer' case, Sherlock Holmes has to face his archenemy: Prof. Moriarty.

Lucien de Rubempré, a young, lower-class poet, leaves his family's printing house for Paris. Soon, he learns the dark side of the arts business as he tries to stay true to his dreams.

In post–civil war Spain, 10-year-old Ofelia moves with her pregnant mother to live under the control of her cruel stepfather. Drawn into a mysterious labyrinth, she meets a faun who reveals that she may be a lost princess from an underground kingdom. To return to her true father, she must complete a series of surreal and perilous tasks that blur the line between reality and fantasy.

In a small Russian town, there is a Research Institute for magic. One of the witches, Alyona Sanina, is going to marry a guy named Ivan Puhov (not a magician). A jealous Apollon Sataneev tells her boss Kira Shemahandskaya that Sanina is going to marry not Ivan Puhov, but Ivan Kivrin, whom Shemahandskaya is going to marry herself. Enraged, Shemahandskaya, who is a powerful witch, orders Sanina to forget about her Ivan and marry Sataneev instead. And this will be final unless Alyona kisses Puhov before midnight on New Year. Alyona's friends call Puhov to the rescue.

A high school student becomes convinced that the world is lost to evil and begins to challenge the morals and beliefs of the adults surrounding him.

In an ordinary Moscow there is an unusual House — with a strange apartment in which not a single resident has stayed for long. And as soon as an independent mother and her lovely 8-year-old daughter moved there, the new residents find out that their living space is not that ordinary, and that the real House Elf lives there. But the House Elf has long been offended by the whole human race and would do all imaginable filth in order to remain alone in the ill-fated apartment.

Terror strikes when a heartbroken woman uses black magic to get her husband back.

An old fisherman makes the biggest catch of his life.

Young Muscovite Kirill is a talented designer of computer games. One day, he is completely erased from the memory of everyone he knew and loved. Kirill learns that he has been chosen for an important and mysterious mission: to become a customs officer between parallel worlds, of which there are dozens in the universe. Will Kirill unravel the mystery of these worlds and who controls them? And is our Earth really just an imaginary "draft" -- a parallel world -- which in reality does not exist ...

While vacationing in the countryside at his childhood home, a woman suddenly reveals to her husband that she is expecting a child – but not his.

In 16th-century Russia in the grip of chaos, Ivan the Terrible strongly believes he is vested with a holy mission. Believing he can understand and interpret the signs, he sees the Last Judgment approaching. He establishes absolute power, cruelly destroying anyone who gets in his way. During this reign of terror, Philip, the superior of the monastery on the Solovetsky Islands, a great scholar and Ivan's close friend, dares to oppose the sovereign's mystical tyranny. What follows is a clash between two completely opposite visions of the world, smashing morality and justice, God and men. A grand-scale film with excellent leading roles by Mamonov and Yankovsky. An allegory of Stalinist Russia

Vera is a troubled teenager fresh out of school feeling trapped in her provincial port town during the turbulent times of perestroika. Her days and nights are filled with drinking, sex, and family dysfunction.

Arturo, the successful owner of an art gallery, and Renzo, a talented but decadent painter, are old friends who cannot stop bickering. One day, Arturo comes up with a solution to all their problems, but the plan they concoct turns out to be crazier and riskier than they originally expected.

Stories from the lives of the tenants of the Moscow's communal apartment: Kostik, who is a college student, lives with his aunt while studying; Arkady Velyurov who is a performing artist; Khobotovs, who are a divorced couple; and Sava, who is Margarita Khobotov's new fiancé. All these people live in one apartment and their lives constantly touch each other's.

In the 1600s, an overzealous clergy hauls innocent women in front of tribunals, forces them to confess to imaginary witchery, and engages in brutal torture and persecution of their subjects.

The trials and tribulations of putting a feature film together.

A political activist is convinced that her guest is a man who once tortured her for the government.

The sinister ghost of the Queen of Spades is out for blood, her victims the students of an old boarding school shrouded in gloomy rumors. Exploring the school’s abandoned wing, the teenagers discover a mirror covered in mysterious drawings. Facing it, they playfully recite an incantation which renders their innermost desires a reality - at the expense of nothing less than their souls.

A group of old friends have a tradition of going to a public bathing house on New Year's Eve. Occasionally too much vodka and beer makes two of them unconscious. The problem is that one of them (Sasha) has to go to Leningrad but another one (Zhenya) goes. Zhenya wakes up at Leningrad airport. Believing that he is still in Moscow he takes a taxi and goes home. The street name, building and even apartment number, the way an apartment complex looks the same and the key coincide completely - just typical Soviet-type 'economy' architecture. Imagine the surprise of Nadya when she enters her apartment and finds a man without trousers in her bed. What's more - Nadya's fiancé also finds him there...

Priest Don Camillo blackmails his friendly rival Peppone into letting him join a Communist delegation visiting the Soviet Union.

In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon.

A seminary student on monastery holiday kills an old witch in a remote village. The hag then transforms into a beautiful young woman whose dying wish is for him to watch over her wake for three nights. With terrors occurring and his faith waning, he reads prayers on the overnight watch and tries to survive the supernatural encounters.

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

A crook named Ostap Bender, who survived a murder attempt by Kisa Vorobyaninov in "12 Chairs," now schemes to extort 1 million from an underground millionaire.

During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor's beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.

Douglas is a foreign entrepreneur, who ventures to Russia in 1885 with dreams of selling a new, experimental steam-driven timber harvester in the wilds of Siberia. Jane is his assistant. On her travels, she meets two men who would change her life forever: a handsome young cadet Andrej Tolstoy with whom she shares a fondness for opera, and the powerful General Radlov who is entranced by her beauty and wants to marry her.

A modern-day witch likes her neighbor but despises his fiancée, so she enchants him to love her instead... only to fall in love with him for real.

After being contacted by their mysterious former colleague, four psychics arrive at a secluded hotel where they are stalked by a group of murderous puppets.

A Russian Literature professor at the University of Havana is ordered to work as a translator for child victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster when they are sent to Cuba for medical treatment. Based on a true story.

"Heart of a Dog" is a Soviet film adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s iconic novella. Set in 1920s Moscow, it tells the satirical and darkly humorous story of a stray dog named Sharik, who is transformed into a human by Professor Preobrazhensky through a daring medical experiment. The resulting man, Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov, embodies the social and ideological tensions of early Soviet society. With its sharp critique of class struggle, human nature, and the perils of radical change, the film is celebrated for its faithful adaptation, brilliant performances, and rich allegorical depth.

Ivan is an ordinary guy who is transferred from modern Moscow to the fantasy world Belogorye. In this parallel universe where characters of Russian fairy tales live, magic is an integral part of daily life, and arguments are settled with the help of sword . Unexpectedly, Ivan finds himself in the middle of a battle between good and evil, and he must discover why everyone thinks that he must play the main role in upcoming events...

Five passengers - the Bandit, his friend Matvei, Matvei's old father, the Musician, and a young woman - race along an empty road in a big black jeep, searching for the Belfry of Happiness which, according to hearsay, lies somewhere between St. Petersburg and the town of Uglich, near a deserted nuclear power station. The Belfry takes people, but it does not take everyone. Each of the five passengers believes that he or she will be chosen.

When eighteen-year-old Pasha rescues a beautiful young woman from a band of strangely powerful attackers, he discovers an underworld of supernatural beings living among us.

A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.

Painter Francisco Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition after his muse, Inés, is arrested by the church for heresy. Her family turns to him, hoping that his connection with fanatical Inquisitor Lorenzo, whom he is painting, can secure her release.

A man who serves in the war between the forces of Light and Dark comes into possession of a device that can restore life to Moscow, which was nearly destroyed by an apocalyptic event.

Seven year old Sasha practices violin every day to satisfy the ambition of his parents. Already withdrawn as a result of his routines, Sasha quickly regains confidence when he accidentally meets and befriends worker Sergei, who works on a steamroller in their upscale Moscow neighborhood.

Two young men seek the solitude of the country; their peace is disturbed when a set of random occurrences suggest to their susceptible minds a pattern with sinister meanings.

Mathieu, a member of the French institute in Irkutsk, is arrested overnight by the Russian authorities. Imprisoned and accused of sexual abuse on his own daughter, he realises he is a victim of a Kompromat. With the help of the FSB, someone has built up a case to frame him. Isolated, he has no one to turn to. Proving his innocence is impossible: the only solution is to escape.

A wizard invents characters who all come to life and start to arrive at his house: a King, his servants, a princes, a bear trapped in a man's body - the usual lot. The Plot mainly rotates around the bear, who the wizard had turned into a man. The Bear, who wishes to be a bear once again, can turn into his old self if he were to kiss a princess. It gets complicated when he falls in love with that princess, that arrived at the wizard's house. For how can they be together, if a single kiss will destroy their love?

Aldin, a vagabond water vendor, embarks of a series of fantastical and tragic misadventures through the Middle East in search of love, fortune, and power.

During the rise of fascism in Mussolini's Italy, a wooden boy brought magically to life struggles to live up to his father's expectations.

A writer secludes himself in the mountains and falls in lust with local Berta. After realizing the oddities of the rural community the author starts to question the lines between reality and fiction.

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.

A young restorer is commissioned to save a fresco representing the suffering of St. Sebastiano, which was painted on the wall of a local church by a mysterious, long-dead artist.

Police Inspector Renko tries to solve the case of three bodies found in Moscow's Gorky Park but finds his attempts to solve the crime impeded by his superiors. Working on his own, Renko seeks out more information and stumbles across a conspiracy involving the highest levels of the government.

Contemporary Moscow. A talented gambler gathers a team of people with supernatural powers to win big at a casino. But they find a much stronger mystical rival.

Young Katya meets a merry company of visiting guys who have a specific entertainment - to organize parties in other people's empty houses. And Katya knows the right place: an old country house on the coast, the owner of which left for a long time. The secluded house, in which the spiritualist salon was at the beginning of the last century, seems to everyone an excellent option. Alarming, even the terrible abandonment of this place does not frighten anyone ... In the midst of the party, someone whom Katya never expected to see appears: the mysterious master of the house ... The man she loved. A man in the grip of otherworldly forces.

It's a story of 29-year-old top-manager Max who is really sure he is absolutely successful. All his life is around earning and spending money. But one day he meet a girl who is from another, real, world. And his own world starts to crash down.

Alexandre Taillard de Vorms is a force to be reckoned with. With his silver mane and tanned, athletic body, he stalks the world stage as Minister of Foreign Affairs for France, waging his own war backed up by the holy trinity of diplomatic concepts: legitimacy, lucidity, and efficacy. Enter Arthur Vlaminck. Hired to write the minister's speeches, Arthur must contend with the sensibilities of his boss and the dirty dealings within the Quai d'Orsay, the ministry's home.

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.

Kongwen Lu is the author of a fantasy novel series following a heroic teenager, also named Kongwen, on a quest to end the tyrannical rule of Lord Redmane, under the guidance of a Black Armor. But through a strange twist of fate, the fantasy world of the novel begins to impact life in the real world, leading Guan Ning to accept a mission from Tu Ling to kill the author.

The day after his funeral, the corpse of Varlam Aravidze, the mayor of a small Georgian town, turns up in his son's garden. Although it is secretly reburied, the corpse keeps returning until the police capture the local woman who is responsible. This woman says that Varlam should never be laid to rest since his Stalin-like reign of terror led to the disappearance of her family and friends.

This is a life story of three girlfriends from youth to autumn ages. Their dreams and wishes, love, disillusions...

It’s 1948 and the Cold War has arrived in Chile. In the Congress, prominent Communist Senator and popular poet Pablo Neruda accuses the government of betraying the Party and is stripped of his parliamentary immunity by President González Videla. The Chief of Investigative Police instructs inspector Óscar Peluchonneau to arrest the poet. Neruda tries to escape from the country with his wife, the painter Delia del Carril, but they are forced to go underground.

It is the New Year's Eve and the employees of an Economics Institute are ready with their annual New Year's entertainment program. It includes a lot of dancing and singing, jazz band performance and even magic tricks. Suddenly, an announcement is made that a new director has been elected and that he is arriving shortly. Comrade Ogurtsov arrives in time to review and disapprove of the scheduled entertainment. To him, holiday fun has a different meaning. He imagines speakers reading annual reports to show the Institute's progress over the year, and, perhaps, a bit of serious music, something from the Classics, played by the Veterans' Orchestra. Obviously, no one wants to change the program a few hours before the show, much less to replace it with something so boring! Now everyone has to team up in order to prevent Ogurtsov from getting to the stage. As some of them trap Ogurtsov one way or another, others perform their scheduled pieces and celebrate New Year's Eve.

People living at a seashore town are frightened by reports of an unknown creature called "the sea devil". Nobody knows what it is, but it's really the son of doctor Salvator. The doctor performed surgery on his son and now young Ichtiander can live under water. This gives him certain advantages, but also creates a lot of problems.

A very free adaptation of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus", Goethe's "Faust" and various other treatments of the old legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil. A nondescript man is lured by a strange map into a sinister puppet theatre, where he finds himself immersed in an indescribably weird version of the play, blending live actors, clay animation and giant puppets.

The first film of a four-part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 novel. In St. Petersburg of 1805, Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a rich nobleman, is introduced to high society. His friend, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, joins the Imperial Russian Army as aide-de-camp of General Mikhail Kutuzov in the War of the Third Coalition against Napoleon.

An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.

Valerie, a Czechoslovakian teenager living with her grandmother, is blossoming into womanhood, but that transformation proves secondary to the effects she experiences when she puts on a pair of magic earrings. Now seeing the world around her in a different light, Valerie must endure her sexual awakening while attempting to discern reality from fantasy as she encounters lecherous priest Gracian, a vampire-like stranger and otherworldly carnival folk.

Grigory, born into an oligarch family, is so spoiled that he believes he's above the law. When he faces jail, his father decides to 'rehabilitate' his son. An abandoned village is reconstructed, 19th century style. Grigory 'goes back in time', reincarnated as a serf, to learn how to appreciate life and to work hard.

Free adaptation of Machado de Assis' classic. The narrator is a rich dead man, who tells us about his life and times, making fun of both.

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.

A solar eclipse activates a magic time portal, and a regular schoolboy Vit'ko from the 21st century goes a thousand years back in time. It doesn’t take Vitya long to recognize the legendary bogatyrs in young Oleshko, powerful Ilya and severe Dobrynya. Their life passes in fighting cumans who try to destroy Rusichi at any cost, using both weapons and black magic. Vitya finds himself in the very midst of incredible events, battles with mythical creatures and acquires real courage.

In 1920s Soviet Russia, a fallen aristocrat, a priest and a con artist search for a treasure of jewels hidden inside one of twelve dining chairs, lost during the revolution.

Aboard a ship early in the 20th-century, a middle-aged Italian tells his story of love to a Russian.