Russia

Bleak landscapes and bleaker prospects envelop the numbed and exploited citizenry of small town Siberia in nonconformist filmmaker Alexei Balabanov's take on 1990's Russia.  A veteran of the USSR's war in Afghanistan, Ivan Skryabin spends his time stoking the coals at the boiler house, while his former comrade-turned-crime boss feeds the fires with the bodies of his fallen enemies.  He casually accepts their fate without question, until an unexpected and familiar face arrives for incineration.   

recommended for age 6+
A hapless misfit duckling grows up to be a beautiful swan. Fairy Tale Expert Jack Zipes to Introduce!

“My love of Wagner is tearing me apart,” says Stephen Fry.  Brought face to face with Hitler through a shared passion—the glorious operatic repertoire of history’s most controversial composer, Richard Wagner—famed British television personality Stephen Fry is forced into a confusing juggling match with his Jewish history in one hand, and his love for Wagner in the other. 

Eavesdropping around a kitchen table in Moscow these days, two decades after the Kremlin supposedly lifted the gates, invariably reveals ordinary lives swept up by the pathos of history yet anxiously awaiting the new hurly-burly of modern Russia.