Aleksei Balabanov

Director

February 25, 1959 (54 years)

† May 18, 2013

Sverdlovsk, RSFSR, USSR

Biography

Aleksei Oktyabrinovich Balabanov was a Russian film director, screenwriter, and producer, a member of European Film Academy. He started from creating mostly arthouse pictures and music videos but gained significant mainstream popularity in action crime drama movies Brother (1997) and Brother 2 (2000). He has been referred to as the "Russian Quentin Tarantino" in the press for his critically acclaimed yet controversial films.

Filmography

7.5

Brother

Danila goes to his successful brother, Victor, in Petersburg to start a new life. Unknown to Danila, Victor is a contract killer, but is in hiding after asking for too much money to assassinate a Chechen mob boss. To avoid exposure, Victor convinces Danila to kill the boss instead.

6.8

Cargo 200

While returning to Leningrad from a visit to his brother, Professor Artyom's car breaks down and he finds assistance at an isolated farmhouse occupied by Alexey, his wife, a Vietnamese laborer, and a stranger who wanders around the farm. When his car is repaired, Artyom leaves, drunk on moonshine, and students Valera and Angelika arrive. After Valera gets drunk, the stranger abducts Angelika.

7.1

Brother 2

Arriving in Moscow, Chechen War veteran Danila meets Konstantin, an old friend who tells him that his twin brother has been forced into signing a crooked contract with a US ice hockey team. Soon after this meeting, Danila discovers Konstantin dead and he sets out to avenge his death; a journey that leads him to Chicago and a whole new experience.

6.7

Dead Man's Bluff

Sergei and Simon have to deliver a suitcase full of heroin to Mikhalych or else they will be killed. There is one minor detail: the only problem-solving technique they are familiar with is a shot in the head.

6.8

Morphine

The year is 1917. We are in the Russian countryside. It is the middle of freezing winter. A pale young, newly educated doctor arrives. Having to deal with one medical challenge after another he soon becomes the center of everyone's attention. To soothe the impressions of human suffering he turns to morphine.

6.8

War

During the bloody war in Chechnya, a British couple and two Russian soldiers are taken hostage by Chechen rebels. Two of the hostages are then released to bring the money for the British woman who is forced to wait for the ransom.

6.1

The Stoker

A shell-shocked Afghanistan war hero named Ivan Skryabin (Mikhail Skryabin) spends his days stoking the fire in a giant coal furnace. When he isn’t tending the flames, he keeps busy with other activities. He works on a historical novel. His adult daughter Sasha (Aida Tumutova) comes to visit. Local kids come to gaze at the flames. Gangsters, including a former Army sergeant (Aleksandr Mosin) and a sniper known as Bison (Yuri Matveyev), drop by to add special kindling to the fire.

6.4

Of Freaks and Men

St. Petersburg, early 20th century. The handsome and secretive Johann specializes in shooting erotic pictures depicting the floggings of bare-bottomed women. With the help of his assistants, the photographic creations gradually penetrate the peaceful households of two upper-class Russian families.

5.7

The Castle

Closely based on Franz Kafka's book "Das Schloß", the movie shares the same action on a land surveyor who is called to a village to do a job that no one seems to have ordered. Once there, he takes up the struggle against bureaucracy emanating from the castle.

5.6

Me Too

Five passengers - the Bandit, his friend Matvei, Matvei's old father, the Musician, and a young woman - race along an empty road in a big black jeep, searching for the Belfry of Happiness which, according to hearsay, lies somewhere between St. Petersburg and the town of Uglich, near a deserted nuclear power station. The Belfry takes people, but it does not take everyone. Each of the five passengers believes that he or she will be chosen.

5.5

The Arrival of a Train

Almanac of five short stories commissioned by ROSKOMKINO to celebrate the 100th anniversary of cinema.

5.8

Happy Days

After being released from a St. Petersburg hospital with a head injury, a nameless protagonist wanders through a desolate, crumbling city in search of a place to stay. As he struggles to reconstruct his identity and find a sense of belonging, he roams the bleak streets and is befriended by an eccentric beggar with a donkey and a slightly deranged prostitute.

5.3

It Doesn't Hurt Me

Three friends are in the entrance of a luxury home in the heart of the city. They are young, full of strength and energy, they have the talent, skill and thirst for life and ... - well, they have all but one. But money...

5.6

River

The end of the 19th century. A tiny colony of lepers in the isolated Yakut taiga. A healthy girl, brought there by chance, falls in love with one of the young male lepers. Soon she is bearing his child. His wife suddenly arrives from the outside world and tragedy ensues within this strange love triangle.

5.3

Nastya and Egor

The main characters of the film are members of the group "Nastya" Nastya Poleva and Yegor Belkin. The half-hour half-documentary tape included footage taken by Balabanov in 1985-1990. In addition to the main characters, the documentary footage captured many prominent figures of Sverdlovsk rock club, in particular Vyacheslav Butusov, Leonid Porokhnyu, and local actors.

7.0

About air flying in Russia

The provincial Russian town of Nerekhta is celebrating its 775th anniversary. The basis of the holiday is the legend about the local craftsman Krikutny, who was the first in the world in 1731 to fly in a balloon. Was there really the balloonist Krikutny, or was this story invented by the provincial official Sulukadzev? Whom to believe? To the text of the charter for the first ballooning or to historians who refute the reality of this event?

3.5

One Step Beyond

Short feature film, filmed in 1988. One of the first works of the film director Alexei Balabanov, at that time an assistant at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio. The film is a course work, filmed while studying at the Higher Courses of Scriptwriters and Directors; the materials of the film became the basis for the thesis work of the director, the film "Nastya and Egor" (1989).

4.6

There used to be another time

The story unfolding during one day, tells about the male vileness and ever-hard female share ... The action takes place against the background of the first hits of the young group "Nautilus Pompilius" ...

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