Spirit of the Sixties

Spirit of the Sixties

Despite their reputation for conformism and censorship, communist Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union produced their own vibrant counterculture during the 1960s. Matching their Western colleagues for rebelliousness and innovation, these directors transformed cinema behind the Iron Curtain. Our collection includes masterpieces from a number of “new wave” movements: Ukrainian Poetic Cinema, the Yugoslav Black Wave, and the Soviet Thaw.

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Spirit of the Sixties
  • No Path Through Fire
    Movie + 3 extras

    No Path Through Fire

    Movie + 3 extras

    Directed by Gleb Panfilov • 1967 • USSR/Russia

    The debut feature from Gleb Panfilov, marking his first collaboration with his future wife and muse Inna Churikova, No Path Through Fire is a classic of sixties cinema. Set during the Russian Civil War and following the fate of military nurse Tanya,...

  • The Plea
    Movie + 2 extras

    The Plea

    Movie + 2 extras

    Directed by Tengiz Abuladze • 1968 • USSR/Georgia

    Based on the works of the Georgian poet Vazha-Pshavela, this influential classic follows a Christian soldier in the Caucasus at the turn of the twentieth century. When he refuses to cut off his enemy’s hand, he is ostracised by his fellow village...

  • Feelings
    Movie + 2 extras

    Feelings

    Movie + 2 extras

    Directed by Algirdas Dausa and Almantas Grikevičius • 1968 • USSR/Lithuania

    Banned by the Soviet authorities outside of Lithuania, this controversial classic blends the personal and the political against stunning coastal landscapes. 1944, on the Curonian Spit: one side of this Baltic lagoon is o...

  • Three
    Movie + 2 extras

    Three

    Movie + 2 extras

    Directed by Aleksandar Petrović • 1965 • Yugoslavia

    The first mature masterpiece from a figurehead of Yugoslav film, Three established Aleksandar Petrović at the forefront of the so-called Black Wave movement. Across a triptych of stories, we follow a soldier named Miloš (iconic actor Velimir “B...

  • The Stone Cross
    Movie + 2 extras

    The Stone Cross

    Movie + 2 extras

    Directed by Leonid Osyka • 1968 • USSR/Ukraine

    Western Ukraine in the 1890s. When elderly peasant Ivan Didukh decides to leave his Carpathian home in search of a better life in Canada, the village comes together to ceremonially mark his departure, understood as symbolic of the death of their old...

  • An Unusual Exhibition
    Movie + 6 extras

    An Unusual Exhibition

    Movie + 6 extras

    Directed by Eldar Shengalaia • 1968 • USSR/Georgia

    An Unusual Exhibition is a typically playful and melancholic work by one of Georgia’s best-loved directors. Charting the artistic frustration and romantic elation of Aguli, a down-on-his-luck sculptor forced to produce gravestones in order to su...

  • The Kidnapping of the Sun and Moon

    Movie + 2 extras

    Directed by Sándor Reisenbüchler • 1968 • Hungary

    Inspired by Carpathian folklore and based on the epic poem by Ferenc Juhász, this mesmerising animated short by the great Sándor Reisenbüchler imagines a world destroyed and then rebuilt. A fearsome, seven-headed dragon swallows the sun and moon,...