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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, major changes have affected cinema in the Russian Federation. This module examines the development of post-Soviet Russian cinema, exploring 16 key films made between the early 2000s and the present. It considers the work of men and women filmmakers equally.

Considering the films in the dual framework of their socio-ideological and cinematic contexts, the module examiners the multiple roles of cinema in the Russian Federation: as entertainment, as an art form, as a tool of soft propaganda, as a repository of cultural memory, as a site for discussions about national identity and expressions of alternative identities and subjectivities, and as a means of resistance and protest. It examines cinema’s representation of the present and the new post-Soviet reality as well as its treatment of key moments in Soviet history, in particular the Stalinist 1930s, the Second World War, the Brezhnevite ‘stagnation’, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and the final years of the Soviet project.

In its exploration of cinematic developments, the module considers, among other topics, the flourishing of so-called ‘real Russian cinema’ (nastoiashchee russkoe kino) during the early 2000s; the subsequent development of contemporary auteur cinema; the phenomenon of the so-called ‘new quiet ones’ (novye tikhie); the move towards increasing social engagement; attempts to make quality mainstream films; young filmmakers’ innovations in genre, form and content and their search to find new formulae for both arthouse and popular cinema; the Putin-era blockbuster; contemporary social commentary cinema; Sakha cinema; and queer Russian cinema.

Many of the films are landmarks of contemporary cinema, popular with viewers and film critics alike, in the Russian Federation and globally. Others are less well-known, but no less interesting. Some found favour with the authorities and were promoted by Putin; others were refused a cinema distribution licence by the Department of Cinema and Modernisation of Programming, part of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.

You do not have to have studied cinema previously to take this module. It will introduce you to key discipline-specific terminology and enable you to develop discipline-specific skills, such as sequence analysis. All the films are shown with English sub-titles, so knowledge of Russian language is not essential either.

Module Content Warning

While this module does include some light-hearted films and some comedies, the majority do not fall into this category. If you take this module, you should expect to encounter films that feature violence, including sexual violence, and cover difficult topics such as war, rape, murder, social collapse and all the challenges that brings (alcoholism, suicide, family breakdown, domestic violence and so on). You are not obliged to watch any film that you find too difficult, for whatever reason. Content warnings are provided for individual films, for more information. Please feel free to write to the module leader, if you have questions about this aspect of the module.

Teaching Delivery

We meet once a week, for one hour, in Terms 1 and 2. There are three contextualising lectures, but all other teaching is in small-group tutorials and is discussion-based. You are required to watch one film and complete some short readings as preparation for each tutorial. You will have the opportunity to complete three different types of formative work, all designed to help you develop the skills you require for the summative assessment, and will receive regular feedback in various formats. The module includes a session that focuses on preparing you for the summative assessment.

Module Aims and Learning Outcomes

By the end of the module, you should be able to:

• demonstrate broad knowledge of the main trends and concerns in contemporary cinema in the Russian Federation, from the early 2000s to the present;
• show in-depth knowledge of the individual films studied on the module, including the socio-ideological context of their production and their reception by different types of audiences;
• analyse a film independently, using discipline-specific terminology and adopting relevant theoretical approaches;
• engage critically with academic work on the individual films studied on the module;
• formulate your own small-scale research topic and identify a relevant, clearly focussed and appropriate research question within that topic;
• articulate your ideas in class discussions and presentations (transferable skill)
• articulate your ideas in writing, demonstrating knowledge and understanding of your chosen topic, high-level skills in analysis and interpretation, and the ability to construct and evidence an argument (transferable skills).

Recommended Reading

• Beumers, Birgit and Eugénie Zvonkine (eds). 2018. Ruptures and Continuities in Soviet/Russian Cinema. London and New York: Routledge.
• Condee, Nancy. 2009. The Imperial Trace: Recent Russian Cinema. Oxford and New York: OUP.
• Condee, Nancy, Alexander Prokhorov and Elena Prokhorova (eds). 2020. Cinemasaurus: Russian Film in Contemporary Context. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press.
• Salys, Rimgaila (ed.). 2019. The Contemporary Russian Cinema Reader, 2005–2016. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press.
• Strukov, Vlad. 2016. Contemporary Russian Cinema: Symbols of a New Era. Edinburgh: EUP.