Yuli Raizman

A documentary on Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Medvedkin, examining his tumultuous career, the rediscovery of his masterpiece Happiness, and Russia's struggles over the course of the 20th Century.

The film tells about the main stages of the history of the country's largest studio "Mosfilm", about the work of the creative team, introduces the viewer to the outstanding masters of Soviet cinematography, with such unique groups such as the Theater-Studio of Film Actors, with the workshops of the studio.

There was no Soviet actor who could claim a greater popularity than Raikin. He was allowed the impossible: to be a satirist. Even during the height of government approved Anti-Semitism, Raikin was a figure to be reckoned with. He was known and beloved by all, his razor-sharp wit admired - and feared. In fact, president Putin met his future wife at a Raikin show. The film follows Raikin to his shows, on stage, and backstage, during rehearsals, at rest, and during conversations with his friends, including legendary Soviet jazz singer Leonid Utesov, film director Yuli Raizman, the poet Bella Ahmadullina, and the American film director George Kukor.

About the Soviet actor of theater and cinema, Honored Artist of the RSFSR - Evgeny Yakovlevich Urbansky recalled Vasily Livanov, Polina Filippovna, Grigory Chukhrai, Grigory Elanchik, Yuli Reisman, Sophia Pavlova, Evgeny Leonov, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Nina Drobysheva, Yuri Nagibin and others. Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko reads poems dedicated to Yevgeny Urbansky. The film also features fragments of movies with his participation.

“The Magic Beam” is a film essay woven together from newsreels and documentary material from different decades, fragments of hundreds of non-fiction and fiction Soviet films of the 1910s-1960s.

With an international chess tournament in progress, a young man becomes completely obsessed with the game. His fiancée has no interest in it, and becomes frustrated and depressed by his neglect of her, but wherever she goes she finds that she cannot escape chess. On the brink of giving up, she meets the world champion, Capablanca himself, with interesting results.