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I recently had and missed the opportunity to see the film, Ward No. 6 (Палата № 6) at the National Gallery of Art as part of a mini film festival honoring Anton Chekhov and his 150th birthday. I later found out that Ward No. 6 was Russia’s Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film.

If you watched the Oscars (another one I missed) you know that “Ward 6″ did not even receive the “honor of just being nominated”. It got me thinking about what Russian films have been nominated, or even won Oscars in the past.

Photo by shaun wong

So here is a list of Russian films that have been nominated for academy awards. If the title is a web link it will take you to Netflix where you can and should rent it! Most of these that I have seen are really great – especially Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears and Burnt by the Sun – I own both of them!

Which ones are your favorites??

• 12 – Nominee ’07
• Вор (The Thief) – Nominee ’97
• Кавказский пленник (Prisoner of the Mountains) – Nominee ’96
• Утомлённые солнцем (Burnt by the Sun) – Winner ’94
• Урга (Close to Eden) – Nominee ’92
• Частная жизнь (Private Life) – Nominee ’82
• Москва слезам не верит (Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears) – Winner ’80
• Белый Бим Черное ухо (White Bim Black Ear) – Nominee ’78
• Дерсу Узала (Dersu Uzala) – Winner ’75
• А зори здесь тихие (The Dawns Here Are Quiet) – Nominee ’72
• Чайкoвский (Tchaikovsky) – Nominee ’71
• Братья Карамазовы (The Brothers Karamazov) – Nominee ’69
• Война и мир (War and Peace) – Winner ’68

Here is a list of all of the films that have been submitted by Russia.

I’m sure we’ve all discovered Netflix by now, but are you using it to practice your Russian? It’s one of the easiest and cheapest ways to catch up on all the Russian movies!!

Recently I tried something a little different: Animated Soviet Propaganda. There are four discs in all: 1. American Imperialists 2. Fascist Barbarians 3. Capitalist Sharks and 4. Onward to the Shining Future: Communism. Each disc has 10 or so animated shorts, followed by a “making of” documentary. So far I’m halfway through the series. (I’m on the cheap Netflix plan; two movies per month.)

I watched “American Imperialists” a while ago and really enjoyed it. It’s interesting to see what the stereotypes of your own culture are – or were – even if it was just propaganda. If you’re not a Netflix subscriber, you can find a lot of the shorts online. Here is one of my favorites from that disc:

Two more of my favorites from disc 1 were Someone Else’s Voice and Mister Twister.

The other night, I finally got around to watching the second disc in the series, “Fascist Barbarians”. I’m sorry to say, I just didn’t enjoy this disc as much as the first one. There was one short, however, that is a must watch if you are interested in Russian culture and history. It’s called “To You Moscow” and was made to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Moscow. It depicts the history of Moscow up to that point. Here is part 1:

I am going to take a break from animated propaganda for now, but I’ll check in when I’ve watched the rest of the series. Has anyone seen any of these films? What did you think?