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Women Who Contain Multitudes: An Intimate Look Into Living With Split Personalities—‘Busy Inside‘, dir. Olga Lvoff, 2019

The mindblowing documentary showcases Dissociative Identity Disorder through the eyes of vulnerable young woman Marshay, therapist Karen Marshall, herself juggling 17 personalities, and others

November 10th, 2020|Country: Russia, USA|

An Ethnographic Documentary on the Harsh But Satisfying Realities of Living in Siberia That Beguiled Werner Herzog—’Happy People: A Year in Taiga’, dir. Dmitry Vasyukov, 2007

Come for Werner Herzog, Tarkovsky’s nephew, and charismatic dogs, stay because it’s an incomparable opportunity to hang out in Taiga for a whole year

September 4th, 2020|Country: Ket People, Russia|

How a Cultural Appropriation Dispute Among ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Obsessed Artists Lead to a Celebration of the Many Indigenous Cultures of the Ex-Soviet Territories

In a wholesome display of Twitter de-escalation, Kazakh artists used the hashtag #AvatarSNG to shed light on the many cultures of CIS-countries and beyond

August 25th, 2020|Country: Azerbaijan, Bashkortostan, Belarus, Chuvashia, Crimean Karaites, Georgia, Hutsul People, Kalmykia, Kamchadals, Karelia, Kazakhstan, Komi, Kuban Cossacks, Kyrgyzstan, Mari El, Moldova, Mordovia, Nivkh People, Pontic Greeks, Roma, Russia, Sakha, Selkup People, Tatarstan, Tuva, Udmurtia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan|

The Pragmatic, Wholesome Hip-Hop of Russia’s Musical Prodigy—Antoha MC, “Pro Menya”, 2019

Antona MC dances like no one is watching, raps about healthy habits and routines, and his music is crystal-clear nostalgic futurism: see why there is no one else like him in the industry

July 16th, 2020|Country: Russia|

The Magnificent Pencil Pushers: The Planet’s Leading Miniature Carvers Working on the Sharp End, Part 2

There is no topic that those micro sculptors with mad skills can't pencil in: from Baby Yoda to endangered species, from complex engineering to the taboo of menstruation.

March 30th, 2020|Country: Bashkortostan, India, Russia, Taiwan, Tamil Nadu, USA, Vietnam|

Water Tells Its Own Story–‘Aquarela,’ dir. Victor Kossakovsky, 2019

An elegiac documentary with an urgent message about climate change centers the narrative around aquatic bodies and lets the environment speak for itself

February 10th, 2020|Country: Denmark, Germany, Greenland, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, United Kingdom, USA, Venezuela, Water|

6 Animated Shorts to See at New York City’s Animation First Festival 2020

Family memories, heart-wrenching puppets, thrilling technological advancements and a lot of dark, delicious humor from the world’s finest animators, including two Oscars nominees

February 2nd, 2020|Country: Argentina, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Tajikistan|

Woman, Winter, Work Camp—Guzel Yakhina, ‘Zuleikha,’ trans. Lisa C. Hayden

A forceful, award-winning and debate-sparking debut novel about life in Gulag through the eyes of a diverse cast of characters, with fierce but timid Tatar woman at the forefront

January 26th, 2020|Country: Russia, Tatarstan|

Family Values, Fraud, Post-Colonialism, and Scary Healing Rituals in ‘Suleiman Mountain’, dir. Elizaveta Stishova, 2017

A husband, his two wives, and estranged young son grapple with opportunities and morals in rural Kyrgyzstan—a powerful road-movie from a young Russian director

January 6th, 2020|Country: Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Russia|

From Beslan hostage to hip-hop artist—Indi, ‘Perviy’, 2019

A survivor of the Beslan school siege and chronic illness creates soulful hip-hop about love, faith, and perseverance, blending Moscow moodiness with Caucasus mountains flair

December 5th, 2019|Country: North Ossetia, Russia|

7 Fresh Animated Short Films Directed by Women From All Over the World

Topless supermarkets, museum exhibits riddled with anxiety, nature-loving robots, immigrant artists and albatross soup: there’s nothing that’s out of bounds for women at Animation Block Party

October 28th, 2019|Country: Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, USA|

Film: State Funeral, dir. Sergei Loznitsa, 2019

An immersive experience of Joseph Stalin’s 1953 funeral proceedings carefully constructed from archival footage that gives a rare glimpse into the psyche of the era

October 14th, 2019|Country: Lithuania, Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine|

Book: Józef Czapski, Inhuman Land: Searching for the truth in Soviet Russia, 1941-1942

The memoirs of an artist and activist who traveled across USSR in search of Polish POWs during WWII, that give an unflinching account of life in the remote corners of the Soviet empire

August 1st, 2019|Country: Iran, Iraq, Poland, Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine|

Book: Gaston Dorren, Babel, 2018

A book of wildly entertaining and illuminating essays on the world’s top 20 languages that celebrates the planet’s differences and similarities in a new way and makes you want to learn a new language

July 11th, 2019|Country: Brazil, Cameroon, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Suriname, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tamil Eelam, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, USA, Vietnam|

Book: Tristan Roulot and Denis Rodier, Arale, 2019

An alternative history, where Rasputin is the one doing purges instead of Stalin, with the use of technology

May 4th, 2019|Country: Canada, Russia|