Bloody peasant uprisings, Mongol conquests, the Great Patriotic War and the conquest of space – you will see all this and much more in these movies.
1. ‘The Captain’s Daughter’ (2000)
Young officer Pyotr Grinev arrives to serve in a small remote fortress, where he falls in love with the commandant’s daughter. However, the happiness of the young couple is thwarted by the uprising of Cossacks and peasants led by Yemelyan Pugachev, which drowned the south of the Russian Empire in blood.
The movie was based on the historical novel ‘The Captain’s Daughter’ by Alexander Pushkin and his historical study ‘The History of Pugachev’. The creators paid great attention to recreating the 18th-century setting, costumes, weapons and household items of that era.
Their efforts were not in vain. The movie won several awards at the ‘Kinotavr’ and ‘Nika’ festivals and was nominated for the ‘Golden Bear’ at the Berlin Film Festival.
2. ‘In August of 1944’ (2001)
German agents are operating behind Soviet lines in liberated Byelorussia. They are trying to disrupt the large-scale Soviet offensive being prepared in the Baltics. Captain Pavel Alekhin’s SMERSH counterintelligence officers are ordered to eliminate this threat as quickly as possible.
The Russian-Belarusian movie based on Vladimir Bogomolov’s novel ‘The Moment of Truth’ received good reviews from both critics and audiences. The FSB also praised it, recognizing it as the most reliable adaptation of the activities of a Soviet Russian counterintelligence officer.
3. ‘Mongol’ (2007)
This joint Russian-Kazakh-German movie tells the story of Temujin’s life, before he became the mighty Genghis Khan. In 2008, it was nominated for an Oscar in the ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ category, but it did not win.
Director Sergei Bodrov planned to make a trilogy, but the project is still on hold to this day.
4. ‘Fortress of War’ (2010)
The Brest Fortress by the Soviet border was the first to come under attack by German troops on June 22, 1941. Its garrison quickly found itself cut off from the main forces. However, the scattered groups of Soviet soldiers and border guards who found themselves trapped did not even think about capitulating…
The joint Russian-Belarusian movie was shot on the territory of the Brest Fortress itself. During the filming, unexploded shells from the war and the remains of Soviet soldiers were discovered there – they were reburied at the local memorial cemetery.
5. ‘The Age of Pioneers’ (2017)
On March 18, 1965, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first person to conduct a spacewalk in outer space. But, going out wasn’t enough; he also had to try to return to Earth alive. And that’s when the problems began…
Leonov himself and Viktor Blagov, one of the leaders of that historic flight, served as consultants for the movie. Interestingly, the film crew was allowed to recreate the design of the spaceships, but the filmmakers were unable to gain access to their classified internal structure.
“This movie has a fantastic and very scary climax block of scenes in outer space, there are outstanding acting performances and a commendable precision of detail. This is a coherent and truly exciting movie, unexpected for the Russian film industry…” film critic Yaroslav Zabaluev wrote about ‘The Age of Pioneers’.
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