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In 1962, a group of striking factory workers was massacred in the industrial Russian town of Novocherkassk. The shocking event, and the ensuing cover-up, is explored in intimate and meticulous detail by veteran filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky in Dear Comrades!, this year’s submission from Russia to the International Feature Oscar race.

With DoP Andrey Naidenov, Konchalovsky uses his trademark multi-camera shooting method and opts for a bleak look: black and white, with a 1:33 aspect ratio that suits the 60s period. The story centers on Lyuda (Yuliya Vysotskaya), a Communist party official who’s having a joyless affair with a married colleague and living with her teenage daughter Svetka (Yuliya Burova) and elderly father (Sergei Erlish). A dutiful employee, Lyuda speaks up in crisis meetings with the authorities, suggesting harsh penalties for the rebellious workers, who are complaining about lower pay and a rise in food prices. She may live to...

Andrei Konchalovsky’s account of the day Red Army soldiers and Kgb snipers opened fire on strikers is a rage-filled triumph

Anger burns a hole through the screen in this stark monochrome picture from veteran director Andrei Konchalovsky: a gruelling re-enactment of the hushed-up Novocherkassk massacre in western Russia in 1962, when Red Army soldiers and Kgb snipers opened fire on unarmed striking workers, killing an estimated 80 people. It was a day of spiritual nausea for the Soviet Union, which had only just entered Khrushchev’s new de-Stalinised era of supposed enlightenment – a postwar civilian bloodbath that was the Soviets’ Sharpeville, or Kent State, or Bloody Sunday, or indeed the Corpus Christi massacre in Mexico City that featured in Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma.

Yuliya Vysotskaya – a longtime Konchalovsky player – plays Lyuda, a Communist party official and single mother who lives in a tiny flat in Novocherkassk with her 18-year-old daughter Svetka...

When we first encounter Lyuda, we barely see her face. She's getting out of bed, watched by her lover Loginov (Vladislav Komarov), who is both married and her superior on the Party Committee. She's framed as the object of his gaze, a headless piece of statuary, bright light streaming into the timeless room and illuminating her curves as they discuss rising food prices and ritually reaffirm the party line to one another. The current shortages are just a minor hurdle on the path to great prosperity. In 2021, UK viewers may find this refrain familiar.

At home with her elderly father (Sergei Erlish) and teenage daughter Svetka (Yuliya Burova), Lyuda doesn't seem much affected by the shortages. Her problems are those of many a middle class mother; her prejudices likewise. as she tries to police Svetka's sexuality and lets her own frustrations spill...

With another day at the (virtual) 56th Chicago International Film Festival comes another batch to sift through. It was a lighter batch too, not just in numbers but also in runtimes. Day three consisted of two short documentaries and another scripted feature, but did the quality make up for quantity? Not quite, but at least they all had their moments.

Making its Midwest premiere at the festival is Gregory Monro’s Kubrick by Kubrick (Grade: C), a 72-minute documentary about Stanley Kubrick’s work. Here, Monro zips us from the filmmaker’s childhood to death, touching on a majority of his offerings in between. Yet it’s not so much Monro doing it: It’s Kubrick himself through interviews and recordings. The idea of making a documentary about the man isn’t inherently flawed, but this one’s approach is, lacking the insight or visuals to make it feel like...