Directed by Kira Muratova • 1967 • USSR/Ukraine

The debut feature from one of Russian-language cinema’s most fearless auteurs, Brief Encounters is a quietly devastating gem. Banned for twenty years and only rediscovered in the late ‘80s, this beautifully staged domestic drama uses flashbacks to ...

Directed by Volodymyr Denysenko • 1968 • USSR/Ukraine

Volodymyr Denysenko’s searing partisan drama is a neglected masterpiece of Soviet Ukrainian cinema. Recounting a partisan attack on a Nazi officer and the brutal recriminations that follow, Vasyl Zemliak’s quasi-autobiographical script draws ...

Directed by Aleksandr Askoldov • 1967 • USSR/Russia

When a Red Army officer is forced to shelter with a Jewish family while seeing her unwanted pregnancy to term, she finds her fierce communist values at odds with their sprawling generosity. Over time, these two worlds are brought closer togethe...

Directed by Jaromil Jireš • 1969 • Czechoslovakia
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Adapted from the breakout novel by the great Milan Kundera, The Joke is one of Czech cinema’s most piercing political statements. During the Stalinist era, happy-go-lucky student Lu...

Directed by Rolands Kalniņš • 1967 • USSR/Latvia

The countercultural spirit of the sixties runs through this cult musical drama from Latvia, which thumbed its nose at the prevailing Soviet orthodoxy of the era and was rarely screened as a result. By day, Cēzars Kalniņš is a telephone repairman; ...

Directed by Lucian Pintilie • 1968 • Romania

Voted the greatest Romanian film of all time, Lucian Pintilie’s heady blend of political theatre and uproarious slapstick remains hugely influential to this day. George Mihăiţă and Vladimir Găitan play two students arrested following a drunken brawl a...

Directed by Kaljo Kiisk • 1969 • USSR/Estonia

Hailed as Estonia’s first truly modern feature film, Kaljo Kiisk’s mind-bending satire of authoritarianism and self-delusion pushed the boundaries of Soviet propriety and was banned from theatres for nearly twenty years. In an unnamed, occupied count...

Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky • 1966 • USSR/Russia

Collective farmer Asya is in love with the father of her unborn child. However, he does not reciprocate, leaving her forced to choose between a loveless marriage to another suitor and single motherhood. Konchalovsky’s sparsely beautiful tale o...

Directed by Jiří Trnka • 1965 • Czechoslovakia
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“The Walt Disney of Eastern Europe”, Jiří Trnka was one of the most influential figures in Czech animation history. This subversive allegorical short, one of his most poignant creation...

Directed by Kira Muratova • 1971 • USSR/Ukraine

Ukrainian auteur Kira Muratova’s sophomore directorial effort, The Long Farewell was shelved by censors until 1987, then heralded as a lost masterpiece. This simple tale of maternal jealousy and filial rebellion is transformed by Muratova into a th...

Directed by Tengiz Abuladze • 1987 • USSR/Georgia

Tengiz Abuladze’s black comic allegory – the first instance of a Soviet filmmaker directly confronting the legacy of Stalin’s purges – caused a sensation when it first aired on Georgian television. Unfolding over two timelines, the film combines ...

Directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko • 1930 • USSR/Ukraine

Widely regarded as Dovzhenko’s masterpiece and one of the finest silent films ever made, Earth is fiercely poetic and politically radical. Narrating the collectivisation of agriculture in the Ukrainian countryside, Dovzhenko employs avant-gar...