Known for Acting
Four old friends are experiencing various troubles adapting to the new times in modern Russia.
A young Russian store clerk has a drab existence in times of shortages and is berated by her ailing mother for not seeing men. So she brings home an unknown young man who she met on the tram. She dreams many things but pines for this man.
A man invites a soaking wet under the rain young girl to his house not suspecting that her visit is not an accident.
A man, who becomes mistaken for his brother who was immigrating to Israel from USSR, finds himself caught up in the middle of a bureaucratic mess when he realizes that if he tells the truth about who he is, he will go to jail and his brother's family will never be allowed to leave the USSR. He therefore assumes his brother's identity to get to Israel hoping his distant uncle living there will help him out. The plan backfires, however, when he realizes that the uncle is a paranoid lunatic thinking the KGB is out to get him. He becomes stranded in Israel with no friends, no money, and no passport, trying to figure out a way to get back home.
The Prohibition years. Chicago bootleggers suffer losses due to their betrayal by one Mick Nich - Mikita Nichiporuk. The mob decides to execute the traitor, who escaped to Odesa, USSR, and organized his own bootleg business there. The hitman, Pollack, arrives in Odesa, and realizes how hard it is to make the hit here, as compared to a civilized country like USA.
A love story between a mythical Russian minister and an opportunist TV series actress.
The psychologist Natalya by the nature of the office activity understands tangled family dramas of everyday life by the clients, finding proper words and arguments. To keep foreign families - her work. However, will of a case, falls to Natalya's lot to endure treachery, jealousy and loneliness. The husband who has fallen in love with the young circus performer has decided to leave her.
The man does everything to protect the still chaste population from the corrupting influence of consumer society.
Two Soviet humans previously unknown to each other are transported to the planet Pluke in the Kin-dza-da galaxy due to a chance encounter with an alien teleportation device. They must come to grips with a language barrier and Plukian social norms (not to mention the laws of space and time) if they ever hope to return to Earth.
The hero is a cadet of a military school where future defenders of the Pinochet regime are trained. Having survived the collapse of the philosophy of brutality, Jaguar (so he is nicknamed by the cadets for his firm and independent character) joins the ranks of fighters against the existing regime.
A movie about a little man - a little funny and a little sad - a Latino businessman, owner of a loss-making shop. And about a big moral problem. A child has fallen down a deep well. He's alive, but it's almost impossible to get him out. What is more dignified: to honestly say that the child is alive but already dead or to repeat for everyone the mantra "he will certainly be rescued now"? And how to live on, if in the heat of an argument, bet on "will not be saved".
Polosa vezeniya (literally) 'Streak of Luck' is the fifth film in a Mosfilm "youth" anthology series and comprises three short stories. The first story, 'Vizit' (The Visit) directed by film maker turned politician Yevgeni Gerasimov tells the story of a rural boy visiting his former village girlfriend, now living in Moscow. Next comes a short film by Aleksandr Majorov called 'Zolotye rybki' (Goldfishes) which is based on a story of a magical goldfish brought from a provincial pet store by the late Russian historian and science-fiction and fantasy writer Kir Bulychyov. The final segment and the title of the film, 'Polosa vezeniya' (Streak of Luck) tells the story of a member of staff at a research institute who is offered the job of the department head, but has second thoughts when he discovers the previous boss was unfairly dismissed.
