The best Aleksey Filimonov’s drama movies

Alex glides his mouse tenderly over online images of Vika. He has been smitten ever since he saw her with her friends and cannot get her out of his head. Now he has found Vika’s profile online and has learned a lot about her. Vika has no idea about any of this. She is beyond Alex’s reach because her school and block of flats are enemy territory for him. Alex nonetheless sneaks into a disco at her school and plucks up the courage to ask her to dance. Incensed by the intruder, the other boys give Alex a beating.

What is love? The heroes of the film try to answer this question. A series of the most different characters and their stories are woven together. Small stories about various things, all about love: a young pair who prefer to live through images of Japanese anime-heroes; a secretary who receives an obscene offer from her boss; a Japanese woman who arrives in Moscow in search of a Russian man; a graffiti artist in search of beauty; an ex-wife employed by her husband for an unusual task; and many other things...

Mikhail Devyatayev, a captured Soviet pilot who leads an escape from a German concentration camp by hijacking an aircraft.

In the second feature film by Russian director Vasily Sigarev, fate brings ordeals to characters that find themselves immersed in deep crisis; they must seek the strength to cope with adversity. In a remote and cold region of Russia, Galya, a middle-aged woman with a drinking problem, has been separated from her twin daughters and she wants them back. On the other hand, Grishka and Anton are a young couple who decide to get married, but right after the wedding their relationship is put to the test in a brutal way. While Artyom longs to see his missing father, but his mother objects. There is only one element that brings all of these characters together: misfortune.

Two people play out a story of love and desperation that's enacted through music in this drama from writer and director Ivan Vyrypaev. Sasha (Alexei Filimonov) is a man in his twenties who lives in the small town of Serpukhov and has fallen in love with a woman who is also named Sasha (Karolina Gruszka).

The film-spectacle “UFO” is the story told by people from the different countries around the world about their contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization. The play is some kind of therapy, as it touches on the basic structures of human mentality, such as egoism, safety, belief in god, gratitude, the spiritual path, etc. According to statistical research, 6 million people claim that they have had contact with aliens; 2 million of them say that they have been hijacked and spent some time in an unknown space. Only 9 tell about something absolutely unbelievable.

Five short love stories, which become a statement of the directors about love. A shoemaker, a reporter, a pavement hooker-in, a psychiatric patient and a young man released from prison are the main characters of the film, heroes in a time of no heroes. All of them have the important qualities of being openhearted and not afraid of loving.

The 1990s. Empty shelves in the shops, an economic abyss and criminal dramas that unfold literally at every corner. The young leader of a criminal gang Anton Bykov, with the nickname “Bull”, must make money in whatever way to provide for his family. After a local shootout, Anton ends up in the police station, from where he is released at the intervention of Moscow’s crime lords. In exchange, the latter asks Anton for a small, but dangerous service

He's an unemployed guy who earns some money by giving lifts to strangers. She's a graphic designer who just got her first job. The film tracks their relationship - and the way it gradually melts away - throughout a year. A subtle, moving portrait of an immature love that breaks down easily.

Kolya Semenov grew up in a village, in a fishing village near the river. He likes a girl who wants to become an actress. Once Kolya steals a gazelle to impress the girl. Ahead of him are several years of roads and hills.

Savely, the owner of the Kotel computer club, was pleased with his life in the area until the suspicious death of a friend. Impressed by this tragedy, Savely decided to break with his surroundings and get away from the area. But old friends and numerous, sometimes absurd circumstances do not want to let go of the hero.

Passengers of a fixed-route taxi are in the power of one person, who intends to solve their problems with their help.

World War II. In autumn 1941 the German troops completely surrounded one of the biggest Russian cities — Leningrad. 2,5 million civilians got trapped in the city. The German commandment decided to destroy the city with bombings, artillery attacks and, most importantly, with hunger. The most difficult first winter of the siege (1941 — 1942). A young woman Olga is walking through the whole city to her father. She wants to see him one last time to say goodbye and to ask for his forgiveness.

“Great Poetry” is about two guys who live on the outskirts of Moscow and work as cash collectors. They’re young, lonely, and all they have in the world is each other. They spend their lives moving money for other people. They attend a poetry class at the local cultural center and watch cockfights at a dorm for migrant workers. Their attempts at finding poetry in the prosaic world around lead them to the conclusion that the only poetic move they can make is to rob a bank. The film isn’t about words or rhymes. It’s about friendship and betrayal, and about our vicious and alien world in which anyone who tries to be honest and consistent ends up looking naïve and cruel. It’s about the everpresent and incomprehensible force that — in spite of everything — makes our life so frantic, strange, and lonely