The Contemporary Russian Cinema Reader: 2005-2016 - Paperback

by Rimgaila Salys (Editor)

The early years of the twenty-first century have been an exciting transitional period in Russian cinema, as the industry recovered from the crises of the late 1990s and again stepped onto the global stage. During these years four generations, from the late Soviet directors through post-Soviet and New Russian filmmakers to the Russian millennials, have worked in varying visual styles and with diverse narrative strategies, while searching for a new cinematic language. Financing and distribution models have evolved, along with conservative politics driving Ministry of Culture regulation. This reader is intended both for contemporary Russian cinema courses and for modern Russian culture courses that emphasize film. It does not attempt to establish a canon for the period but seeks to provide undergraduate students with an introduction to significant Russian films released between 2005 and 2016 that are also available with English subtitles. The twenty-one essays on individual films provide background information on directors' careers, detailed analyses of selected films, along with suggested further readings both in English and Russian.

Author Biography

Rimgaila Salys is Professor of Russian Studies Emerita at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is a specialist in twentieth-century film, literature, and art, and the author of the catalogue raisonné of Leonid Pasternak's Russian works (OUP) and a study of the musical comedy films of Grigorii Aleksandrov (Intellect Press and NLO). She is also the editor of a collection on Iurii Olesha's Envy (Northwestern University Press) and the memoirs of Josephine Pasternak (Slavica). Most recently, she has edited and contributed to the two volume Russian Cinema Reader for Academic Studies Press.