Russian Resurrection Film Festival 2015

Overview

The Russian Resurrection Film Festival is back for 2015, showcasing the best of Russian cinema from Vladivostok to Moscow. The largest festival of Russian filmmaking anywhere outside of the motherland, this year's lineup features a wide mix of genres and includes a program stream dedicated to classic and contemporary war films. Because nobody makes war movies like the Russians.

Headlining the program is Dmitriy Meskhiev's Battalion, which tells the real-life story of the First Russian Women's Battalion during the height of WWI. Other films in the sidebar include 1959's Oscar-nominated Ballad of a Soldier, and Alexei German's 19756 epic 20 Days Without War, as well as the recent Russian-Ukrainian co-production Battle for Sevastopol — which opens the festival in Brisbane.

Moving beyond the canon fire, other standouts on the program include Teacha, a thriller about a high school teacher holding her students hostage, and Sunstroke, a three-hour historical drama about the last days of the Russian Empire.