Russia

Aleksey German’s Hard to Be a God is in the running for the most disgusting films I’ve ever seen. The film produces an enormously affecting, intricately detailed, and thoroughly realized visceral nightmare, one that never wanes or becomes numbing over its three-hour runtime but instead accumulates into an at-times overwhelming journey into a world run by a phantom regime of hedonist ignorance and reactionary cruelty. Built upon a twist on science fiction that probes fascinating questions about politics, morality, and the myth of the arc of human progress, Hard to Be a God uses this genre framework as a platform to manifest a carnival of depravity and filth.

Alexey Fedorchenko’s last film, Silent Souls, explored the funeral rites of the Merya people, following two men as they journeyed to cremate a spouse on the banks of the Oka River. They carried out strange rituals, such as tying coloured threads into the dead woman’s pubic hair, but it was presented with an honest naturalism and rooted in spiritual truth. The result was a profound and moving piece of cinema, depicting the sombre passing of an ancient way of life.