Aleksandr Sokurov

Gjirokastra (2024)

Albania in the 1960s, the city of Gjirokastra. Katya, a graduate of the Philology Department of Moscow State University, marries an Albanian, a young historian whom she met in Moscow. Soon after Katya enters into a dialogue with the dictator Enver Hoxha at ...

Russian Dreams (2023)

The film tells the story of a teenager Kolya, who, after the death of his mother, finds himself in the village with his grandmother. There they are looking forward to the return of Kolya's father. However, the father does not come, and Kolya and his brothe ...

Fairytale (2022)

A civil and artistic statement about those who determined the fate of the planet: Stalin, Churchill, Mussolini, Hitler, according to a Russian newspaper. ...

The Laughter Amid Tears (2021)

Featuring rare archive footage of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Churchill. The leaders hold imaginary conversations around WWII, revealing their personal takes of wartime events. ...

A Russian Youth (2019)

A teenage soldier in World War I—a simple village boy with a naive youthful dream of fame and medals—throws himself into the unknown and goes blind in the first battle, thus taking on a new job: intercepting enemy planes by listening to the air through ...

The Life Of My Friend (2017)

A young man was born in a small Russian city, but now lives in the Caucasus, in a foreign culture. He works as a mountain guide and enjoys life, but remains a stranger among the people he lives with. He will have to leave his carelessness behind and grow u ...

Closeness (2017)

1998, Nalchik. A Jewish family is in trouble: the youngest son and his bride do not come home, and in the morning, a ransom note arrives. The ransom is so high that the family is forced not only to sell its small business, but also to seek help from its fe ...

Go. Go. Go (2016)

Video version of the dramatic dystopian performance staged by Alexander Sokurov in Vicenza, on the stage of the world's oldest theater Teatro Olimpico. The plot is based on a free interpretation of the works of I. A. Brodsky, which tells about two characte ...

Francofonia (2015)

Master filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) transforms a portrait of the world-renowned museum into a magisterial, centuries-spanning reflection on the relation between art, culture and power. ...

Faust (2011)

A doctor in early 19th-century Germany becomes infatuated with the sister of a man he unintentionally killed and bargains with the Devil incarnate to conjure their union in exchange for his soul. ...

We Need Happiness (2010)

The life stories of two elderly women living in a remote region of Kurdish Iraq. ...

Intonation. Arsen Kanokov (2010)

Intonation. Sergey Slonimsky (2010)

Intonation. Valery Zorkin (2010)

Intonation. Boris Averin (2010)

Intonation. Vladimir Yakunin (2010)

Intonation. Yuri Schmidt (2010)

The Ways of the World: Vol. 1 (2010)

A collection of six documentary films featuring various locations and cultures of the world, screened at the Musée du Quai Branly from 18-23 May. ...

Reading Book of Blockade (2009)

Famous actors and ordinary people from all walks of life read stories from a book describing the 900-day siege of Leningrad during World War II. ...

Elegy of a Voyage (2009)

This intimately narrated journey from Russia to Rotterdam, via rail, road and Finnish ferry, is a melancholy meditation on divinity, time and place in art, purpose (or its lack) and the loneliness of the soul. Passing through misty snowscapes, half-glimpse ...

Rehearsal: Yuri Temirkanov (2008)

The painting tells about the difficult process of rehearsals under the guidance of a conductor. ...

Alexandra (2007)

Elderly Aleksandra visits her Russian soldier grandson, Denis, at the Chechen war front, providing comfort as she tours his army. All the while, Denis ponders the reason for her unexpected appearance. ...

Boris Godounov (2007)

TV version of the Opera "Boris Godunov" modest Mussorgsky staged by Director Alexander Sokurov at the Bolshoi Theater. ...

The Andrei Tarkovsky Companion (2007)

The life and work of Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky is celebrated and explored in three documentary films: Tempo Di Viaggio (1983) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and Tonino Guerra, Moscow Elegy (1988) directed by Alexander Sokurov, and One Day In The ...

Elegy of Life: Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya (2006)

A documentary about the famous musician Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya. ...

The Sun (2005)

A re-imagination of Japanese Emperor Hirohito's final days in power as WWII draws to a close. ...

The Diary of St. Petersburg: Mozart. Requiem (2004)

Sokurov directed and filmed Mozart's Requiem for the Rossica Choir in the wonderful hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. ...

Father and Son (2003)

In this dreamlike film, a nameless father and his son, Aleksei, live together in an apartment in St. Petersburg. Aleksei's mother has died and consequently the two have a very close relationship. When Aleksei acquires a girlfriend, she refuses to take a ba ...

Russian Ark (2002)

A ghost and a French marquis wander through the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, encountering scenes from many different periods of its history. ...

Taurus (2001)

Unfolding over two days in 1924, the film depicts the dying Lenin, world revolutionary and father of the USSR, now powerless and isolated at his Gorki estate. Cared for by his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaia, sister Maniasha, his German doctor and several attenda ...

Dolce (2000)

A documentary portrait of Miho Shimao, widow of renowned Japanese writer Toshio Shimao. ...

Moloch (1999)

In 1942 Bavaria, Eva is alone, when Adolf arrives with Josef, his wife Magda, and Martin to spend a couple of days without politics. ...

The Knot (1998)

The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn is a two-part Russian television documentary by Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The documentary shot in Solzhenitsyn's home shows his everyday life and covers his reflections on Russian history ...

Petersburg Diary: Kozintsev's Apartment (1998)

The second film of Alexander Sokurov's documentary series "Petersburg Diary" is dedicated to the outstanding Soviet film director Grigory Kozintsev ...

Confession (1998)

Originally aired on Russian television, this five-part semi-documentary series tells the story of a Russian naval commander in charge of an Arctic-based ship. The film provokes a meditation on solitude and isolation, while revealing the daily duties associ ...

The Diary of St. Petersburg: Kozintsev's Flat (1998)

A documentary film about the Russian director Sergei Kosintsev. ...

Documenta X - Die Filme (1997)

A Humble Life (1997)

A Humble Life is certainly true to its title, a documentary study of the day-to-day world of Umeno Mathuyoshi, an old woman who lives in an isolated mountain house in the Nara prefecture in Japan. ...

The Diary of St. Petersburg: Inauguration of the Monument to Dostoevsky (1997)

Petersburg Diary - Opening of the monument to Dostoevsky ...

Robert. A Fortunate Life (1997)

Aleksander Sokurov brings the treasures of the Hermitage back into the light by making films about artists and their paintings. He has chosen the painter Hubert Robert, who spent a long time in Italy, and whose preference was for creating ancient ruined la ...

Mother and Son (1997)

A man goes for a walk through the countryside with his dying mother. ...

Oriental Elegy (1996)

A surreal journey of a displaced spirit as he wanders in the interminable darkness through the temporal landscape of a quaint and isolated feudal-era fishing village. Guided by a series of faintly illuminated rooms, the wandering spirit comes upon ancient ...

Celebrate Cinema 101 (1996)

This film project was made in 1996 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the cinema. ...

Spiritual Voices (1995)

In 1994, Alexander Sokurov accompanied Russian troops assigned to a frontier military post at the Tajikistan/Afghanistan border to film their experiences. While unnamed tribal forces occasionally engaged the troops in skirmishes, Sokurov's haunting documen ...

A Soldier's Dream (1995)

This small film came out of the material edited for Sokurov's five-hour documentary Spiritual Voices. ...

Whispering Pages (1994)

An anonymous man wanders through decomposing, fog-enshrouded catacombs and encounters a series of "the degraded and the humiliated," including a holy prostitute and a Kafkaesque bureaucrat. ...

Elegy from Russia (1993)

These images and sounds are poetic metaphors that transform "Elegy from Russia" into a document that provides a emotional–historical "memory bank" for all. ...

Stone (1992)

A young night watchman at the Anton Chekhov museum in Yalta encounters a mysterious, weary intruder who appears to be the playwright himself, returned from the dead. Over the course of a single night, the two share a series of quiet, existential interactio ...

An Example of Intonation (1991)

The second film by Sokurov featuring Boris Yeltsin as the principal character. Now he is the President of Russia, invested with power, bearing the full responsibility for the destinies of his distant compatriots as well as his closest kin and friends. ...

To the Events in Transcaucasia (1990)

Made up of footage of a protest manifestation of mothers whose children had been summoned to serve in Soviet military forces and sent to the zones of Transcaucasian conflicts. ...

The Second Circle (1990)

A man tries to come to terms with his father's death and to deal with the mundane details of his burial in a society cut off from spirituality. ...

Save and Protect (1990)

Inspired by Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Sokurov's Save and Protect recalls the most crucial events of Emma's decline and fall: affairs with the aristocratic Rodolphe and the student Leon, the humiliation that follows her husband's botching of the operation o ...

Simple Elegy (1990)

The office of the President of Lithuania, 1990. Inside, silence reigns, contrasting to the shouting of the crowds outside the windows of the governmental building. At the same time, this silence is mirrored by the intense silence of several women, whose fa ...

Leningrad Retrospective (1990)

A montage of Leningrad newsreel becomes a composite collage made up of documents-shots, divided in 16 parts, presenting the author's point of view on Russia and modern times. In the title, Sokurov appears as 'compiler' and the selection of the documents is ...

Soviet Elegy (1989)

In "The Soviet Elegy" the long train of photos of the Soviet leaders, dead or alive, stops at the portrait of Yeltsin. At the time of shooting Yeltsin had fallen down from the assembly of the Communist Party deities, and participated in the earthly life th ...

Petersburg Elegy (1989)

The story about the life of Shaliapin's family, and an emotional generalization of the life of people in modern Leningrad. ...

Sonata for Hitler (1989)

As with so many early films by Sokurov, this film has two dates: the first is the date of its creation (the film was then banned), the second is the date of the final edition and legal public screening. The film consists of German and Soviet archive footag ...

Days of Eclipse (1988)

This bleak late soviet-era drama follows the career of Malyanov, a young medical school graduate who has been sent to work in Turkmenia. Here he runs into a hodge-podge of people of differing ethnicities, all of them victims of the government's earlier man ...

Maria (1988)

A requiem for a Russian peasant woman, Maria Semionovna Voinova. The film is in two chapters. The first chapter consists of an impression of Maria Semionovna, scenes of the colours of summer time: hay–making, bathing in a river, work in the flax fields a ...

I Love You All Very Much... (1988)

A documentary film about the work of Dinara Asanova, director at the Lenfilm film studio. ...

The Lonely Voice of Man (1987)

Set in the early 1920s after the end of the Russian Civil War, Red Army soldier Nikita returns to his hometown to see his partner Lyuba, both of whom are scarred by the trauma of the Russian Empire of yesteryear. ...

The Evening Sacrifice (1987)

The manifestation and fireworks on the 1st of May, one of the ritual celebrations of Soviet times, as a gathering of tired participants of a mass scene falling into pieces without the director's orders and without any aims. ...

Empire (1987)

A rich woman accidently comes across a conversation on the phone about people talking about a murder. ...

Moscow Elegy (1987)

A 1988 documentary film directed by Alexander Sokurov, about the later life and death of Soviet Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The film was originally intended to mark the 50th birthday of Tarkovsky in 1982, which would have been before his death. Con ...

Mournful Unconcern (1987)

The action in this lavishly produced film takes place at an oddly ark-shaped mansion during World War I, and in spirit (although not in story) it reflects the play which inspired it, the ferociously antiwar Heartbreak House by George Bernard Shaw. A large ...

And Nothing More (1987)

The picture is about the anti-Hitler coalition of the USSR, England and America, which developed as a counterweight to the aggressive policy of Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The unique newsreel footage of these years, shot by operators of diffe ...

Elegy (1986)

The reburial of great Russian singer Feodor Chaliapin from Les Batignolles cemetery in Paris to Novo–Devitchye cemetery in Moscow. The daughters from Chaliapin's second marriage travel to the Soviet Union for the ceremony. ...

Patience Labour (1985)

Interesting short documentary on young athletes in a Soviet ice skating program, some of whom are barely past toddler age. Kinetic and up close, the doc focuses on movement with music, eschewing interview and conversation, and mostly submerging political a ...

Dmitri Shostakovich. Sonata for Viola (1981)

The life and work of the great Russian composer Dmitriy Shostakovich is presented in this documentary through rare images and audios from many archives, at one time censored by the Soviet government. A brief take on his life, from his transition as an earl ...

The Degraded (1980)

This film was Sokurov's first feature at Lenfilm, roughly based on a short story by the contemporary Soviet writer Grigory Baklanov about the transitional period from power to subordinance. ...

Last Day of a Rainy Summer (1979)

A document on the daily life of an ordinary collective farm of the U.S.S.R. in 1978 : the hard-working people who love their work just because they are brought up to do so, almost with no rewards from life, in an atmosphere contaminated with official rheto ...

Callsign R1NN (1975)

In the 20's an enthusiast radio amateur, Fyodor Lbov, experiments one of the first short-waves radio in the city of Gorky. ...

Summer of Maria Voynova (1975)

The Automobile Gains in Reliability (1974)

This film was created by Sokurov before or during his VGIK student years for the regional TV of Gorki. He does not consider it a part of his filmography. For its creators, it was just a TV program, and the people who worked on it most often were being give ...

The Earthliest of Concerns (1974)

A documentary film about the agricultural development in the region of Gorky: the everyday life in a sovkhoz, the building of a reservoir and of a greenhouse. ...

Voices in the Old Walls (2019)

A documentary grotesque in which even the walls speak. Famous directors of St. Petersburg cinema recall their lives and work, and images of old films come to life to remind the viewer of themselves. ...

Francofonia (2015)

Master filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) transforms a portrait of the world-renowned museum into a magisterial, centuries-spanning reflection on the relation between art, culture and power. ...

Voice of Sokurov (2014)

Five years in the making, based on six lengthy interviews filmed on six different locations in Saint Petersburg, we meet an outspoken artist who covers here his entire life and prolific career. The locations were Sokurov's own favourites, where he felt at ...

The Romanovs: Glory and Fall of the Czars (2013)

Yekaterinburg, Russia, July 17th, 1917. Czar Nicholas II Romanov and his entire family are brutally murdered by the Bolsheviks. This tragic event puts an end to the long dynasty that had ruled the country with an iron hand since the coronation of Michael I ...

Film about the film (2013)

Documentary film from the set of Igor Olshansky's debut short film "Easter". Igor Olshansky is a participant of Alexander Sokurov's programme "Example of Intonation", a non-commercial film support foundation. ...

Alexander Sokurov. Temptation (2012)

The film is dedicated to the life and work of the Russian director, who deservedly received worldwide recognition due to his incredible talent ...

Agnès Varda: From Here to There (2011)

Agnès Varda travels around the world to meet friends, artists and filmmakers for an expansive view of the global contemporary art scene. ...

We Need Happiness (2010)

The life stories of two elderly women living in a remote region of Kurdish Iraq. ...

The Art of Time (2009)

Explores some of the most innovative attempts by contemporary artists, filmmakers, architects etc to explore multiple Temporalities and to counter the uniform sense of time promoted by our technology-driven society. ...

Elegy of a Voyage (2009)

This intimately narrated journey from Russia to Rotterdam, via rail, road and Finnish ferry, is a melancholy meditation on divinity, time and place in art, purpose (or its lack) and the loneliness of the soul. Passing through misty snowscapes, half-glimpse ...

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Lightning strikes a tall tree (2008)

The film is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. ...

Alexander Sokurov: Questions about cinema (2008)

An encounter with the great Russian film director Alexander Sokurov, which gives rise to a lot of questions about his artistic stand and the problems he touches upon and resolves in his works. The film presents the director's thoughts about the history of ...

Sokurov (2006)

Poetic portrait of a filmmaker. The famous director reflects on creativity and love. His friends and associates take part in the film: artist Vladimir Shinkarev, engineer Vladimir Nikolaev, actress Elena Kramer (Spiridonova), director, film critic Oleg Kov ...

Elegy of Life: Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya (2006)

A documentary about the famous musician Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya. ...

In One Breath: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (2003)

Making of Russian Ark, with on camera personal views by members of the cast and crew of the major film. ...

Kira (2003)

Film about the work of Ukrainian film director Kira Muratova. ...

Russian Ark (2002)

A ghost and a French marquis wander through the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, encountering scenes from many different periods of its history. ...

The Knot (1998)

The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn is a two-part Russian television documentary by Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The documentary shot in Solzhenitsyn's home shows his everyday life and covers his reflections on Russian history ...

Petersburg Diary: Kozintsev's Apartment (1998)

The second film of Alexander Sokurov's documentary series "Petersburg Diary" is dedicated to the outstanding Soviet film director Grigory Kozintsev ...

The Diary of St. Petersburg: Kozintsev's Flat (1998)

A documentary film about the Russian director Sergei Kosintsev. ...

The Diary of St. Petersburg: Inauguration of the Monument to Dostoevsky (1997)

Petersburg Diary - Opening of the monument to Dostoevsky ...

Robert. A Fortunate Life (1997)

Aleksander Sokurov brings the treasures of the Hermitage back into the light by making films about artists and their paintings. He has chosen the painter Hubert Robert, who spent a long time in Italy, and whose preference was for creating ancient ruined la ...

Edward Shelganov visiting Sokurov (1997)

Alexander Nikolayevich Sokurov talks with the young director of independent experimental cinema Edward Shelganov. ...

Oriental Elegy (1996)

A surreal journey of a displaced spirit as he wanders in the interminable darkness through the temporal landscape of a quaint and isolated feudal-era fishing village. Guided by a series of faintly illuminated rooms, the wandering spirit comes upon ancient ...

A Soldier's Dream (1995)

This small film came out of the material edited for Sokurov's five-hour documentary Spiritual Voices. ...

An Example of Intonation (1991)

The second film by Sokurov featuring Boris Yeltsin as the principal character. Now he is the President of Russia, invested with power, bearing the full responsibility for the destinies of his distant compatriots as well as his closest kin and friends. ...

Simple Elegy (1990)

The office of the President of Lithuania, 1990. Inside, silence reigns, contrasting to the shouting of the crowds outside the windows of the governmental building. At the same time, this silence is mirrored by the intense silence of several women, whose fa ...

Leningrad Retrospective (1990)

A montage of Leningrad newsreel becomes a composite collage made up of documents-shots, divided in 16 parts, presenting the author's point of view on Russia and modern times. In the title, Sokurov appears as 'compiler' and the selection of the documents is ...

Soviet Elegy (1989)

In "The Soviet Elegy" the long train of photos of the Soviet leaders, dead or alive, stops at the portrait of Yeltsin. At the time of shooting Yeltsin had fallen down from the assembly of the Communist Party deities, and participated in the earthly life th ...

Petersburg Elegy (1989)

The story about the life of Shaliapin's family, and an emotional generalization of the life of people in modern Leningrad. ...

Moscow Elegy (1987)

A 1988 documentary film directed by Alexander Sokurov, about the later life and death of Soviet Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The film was originally intended to mark the 50th birthday of Tarkovsky in 1982, which would have been before his death. Con ...

And Nothing More (1987)

The picture is about the anti-Hitler coalition of the USSR, England and America, which developed as a counterweight to the aggressive policy of Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The unique newsreel footage of these years, shot by operators of diffe ...

You Should Survive (1981)

1945, an attack aviation regiment is based at the field airfield, which is served by a team of young girls. The last days of the war are coming... In one of the battles, Lieutenant Volynin's attack aircraft, damaged by a shell fragment, landed in territory ...