-- "Sarafan" (Aleksandra Strelyanaya, 2006, 21 min, color, DVD) This spectacularly visual film depicts a Russian village in the Pskov area on the eve of a wedding, as the communal elders reminisce about their youth and the community's wedding traditions. With black and white pictures and old women's stories juxtaposed against living traditions and ceremonies, this film captures one moment in the experience of a young girl waiting for happiness. The author manages to create a collage of raw images that are both unique and traditional for Russian cinematography.

-- "Coal Dust" (Maria Miroshnichenko, 2006, 20 min, Color & B&W, DVD) This film is about life in a small mining town near the Ural mountains, where miners spend their whole lives working for a state-run industry that values the coal dust more than the individuals it employs.

Coal dust is dangerous- hardly visible, but highly explosive. To detect it on a daily basis is the job of a young miner, whose off-voice monologue leads us through the film. But misfortune is what the mates from Kopejsk expect: Privatization of the mine leading to a decline in working conditions. Silicosis after a few years below ground. A salary so low that the family cannot be fed. This may lead them to explode just like the coal dust, to go on strike - or to throw themselves into the pit out of desperation. The only certainty seems to be that the lift door will close in front of their serious faces. And they become small, blurred points of light- the people who once made the world a brighter place, according to the lyrics of a song from better times. But soon it will be over with the mines and who knows what will happen to Kopejsk? The image of the miner with his black face and a jackhammer in his hand was one of the icons of socialism. Miro challenges the myth without harming its heroes. The magnificent camera of Nikolai Karpow shows them as the ruler of an apparently mystic underground 'realm of shadows'. Yet the clever montage reveals the desperate struggle for existence outside of this realm.

-- "Being Director Berezovsky" (Sergey Kachkin, 2007, 22min, color, DVD) Sergey Kachkin's debut film tells the story of a retired Soviet era director who made one internationally popular and award-winning film before sinking into obscurity.