TEHRAN – Three films from among the latest productions by Russian filmmakers will be reviewed in a program at Iran’s Farabi Cinema Foundation in Tehran next week.

“Elsa’s Land” (2020), “Are You Alive?” (2022) and “Don’t Bury Me without Ivan” (2022) will be screened in the three-day program entitled “Russian Film Days”, the foundation announced on Wednesday.

The program will begin on Saturday evening by screening “Don’t Bury Me without Ivan” directed by Lyubov Borisova.

The film follows Yakut Stepan Beresekov who periodically falls into a lethargic sleep. Only a Russian, the son of a priest, Ivan Popov, can distinguish his condition from real death. But Popov is going on a long ethnographic expedition. Stepan decides to follow his savior so as not to be buried alive.

Directed by Ildar Yagafarov, “Are You Alive?” tells the story of the Islamov family, who are united by a tragedy. Relatives met on holidays, and anniversaries, said good words to a friend, made promises and each returned to his life. And then one day, the moment arrives when relatives will have to prove that they are members of the same family. The breakdown of family ties is a worldwide problem.

The film won Tatarstan President’s Prize for Humanism in Cinema and the audience award at the 2021 Kazan Muslim Film Festival.

“Elsa’s Land” by Yuliya Kolesnik is about Leonid (Veniamin Smekhov), a retired geography teacher, and Elsa (Irina Pechernikova), an ethnic German woman, who meet and fall in love. Their friends and family are appalled: both Elsa and Leonid are in their 70s. They declare war on this relationship - which to them seems indecent, inconvenient and threatening to the material well-being of the couple’s children and grandchildren.

The director of Russia’s Union of Cinematographers, Valery Ivanovich Tonkikh, director and producer Ivan Bolotnikov and several other Russian filmmakers and cinema experts have been invited to attend the event.

Photo: A poster for Russian Film Days, which will be held at Iran’s Farabi Cinema Foundation from December 24 to 26. 

MMS/YAW