Film review

Georgie Archer reviews "Wow, a talking fish!" the 1983 Soviet cartoon directed and animated by Robert Sahakyants and screened at the Samizdat film festival 2026.

Georgie Archer reviews "Comrade policeman", Assel Aushakimova’s 2021 satirical short film, screened at the Samizdat film festival 2026.

Mathieu Lemoine reviews "Love Is Not an Orange" and speaks with director Otilia Babara about the emotional scars of a generation growing up apart.

Diego Benning Wang examines how the Wagner-linked films “Tourist” and “Granit” recast Russian mercenary violence and exploitation in Africa as heroic intervention, while reproducing colonial [...]

Diego Benning Wang revisits “Lev Yashin: The Black Spider” as more than a tribute to a football legend: a powerful story of genius, scapegoating and rehabilitation that restores Yashin’s dignity, [...]

Tamar Kapanadze reviews "Smiling Georgia", a film about an unfulfilled campaign promise that exposes how populism and poverty intersect in Georgia.

Maya Ivanova reviews "2000 Songs of Farida", a stunning depiction of 1920 Uzbekistan- a time of turmoil and transiton.

Georgie Archer reviews "Mr Nobody Against Putin", a film about the plight of a school turned upside down following the start of the war in Ukraine.

Rafik Aharonyan reviews "Two Prosecutors", Sergei Loznitsa’s film about Stalinist repression and the machinery of terror in Soviet Russia.

Flavia Stähli reviews Nora Ikstena's "Soviet Milk", a powerful mother-daughter story of family, repression and fragile hope under Soviet rule in Latvia.