Klassiki Picks with Alissa Timoshkina: 5 June – 3 July
Klassiki Picks is our series of curated watchlists personally selected for our subscribers by celebrated filmmakers, writers, and actors.
We’re delighted to welcome Alissa Timoshkina to the hot seat for the this latest edition. Alissa is a chef, writer, and historian whose work has put Eastern European cuisine back on the map. Originally from Siberia, with Ukrainian-Jewish heritage, her food and events have been featured in The Guardian, The Independent, Vogue, and many more. Her cookbooks – Salt and Time: recipes from a Russian Kitchen (2019) and the new Kapusta: vegetable-forward recipes from Eastern Europe (2025) – explore the diversity and tradition of food from across the region. In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Timoshkina and Ukrainian chef Olia Hercules established the #CookForUkraine social media initiative, which has since raised over two million pounds for UNICEF, Legacy Of War Foundation, and Choose Love.
Alissa has curated a selection of four titles for Klassiki Picks, taking in Poland, Georgia, Armenia, and Russia and stretching from the 1970s to the present. Available to Klassiki subscribers from 5 June - 3 July 2025.
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Mayak
Directed by Maria Saakyan • Armenia • 2006
The debut feature from Maria Saakyan – made when she was just 27 – Mayak is a haunting account of conflict, displacement, and childhood. Anna Kapaleva plays Lena, a young woman who returns to her native village in war-torn Armenia in an attempt to convi...
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Repentance
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 ...
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Tale of Tales
Directed by Yuri Norstein • 1979 • Russia
The undisputed masterpiece from the reclusive Yuri Norstein, Tale of Tales is widely regarded as one of the finest animations of all time. In only 29 minutes, Norstein traverses personal and national history in almost abstract sequences that mimic the wo...
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Ida
Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski • 2013 • Poland
Paweł Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winning period road movie excavates the sins of Poland’s twentieth-century history. It is 1962, and Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), an orphan given up to a convent during the war, is on the verge of taking her monastic vows. But...
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Alissa Timoshkina introduces her Klassiki Picks
Klassiki Picks is our series of curated watchlists personally selected for our subscribers by celebrated filmmakers, writers, and actors. We’re delighted to welcome Alissa Timoshkina to the hot seat for the this latest edition. Alissa is a chef, writer, and historian whose work has put Eastern Eu...
