The Russian Woodpecker

Jan 31, 2015

1h 20m

★ 6.2

Chernobyl & War in Ukraine

Overview

As his country is gripped by revolution and war, a Ukrainian victim of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster discovers a dark secret and must decide whether to risk his life and play his part in the revolution by revealing it.

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

Rattapallax

Roast Beef Productions

GraciaFilms

The Russian Woodpecker Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Himself

Fedor Alexandrovich

Fedor's Father

Andrei Alexandrovich

Fedor's Son

Igor Alexandrovich

Chernobyl Historian

Natalia Baranovskaya

Chernobyl Chief Engineer

Andrei Bilyk

Duga Data Commander

Fedor Chebanenko

Himself - CBS News Foreign Correspondent (archive footage)

Charlie D'Agata

Chernobyl Engineer

Anatoly Duatlov

Radar Professor

Fedor Dubrovka

Former President Russia (archive footage)

Mikhail Gorbachev

Former President Ukraine (archive footage)

Viktor Yanukovich

Last Soviet Head of Atomic Energy

Georgiy Kopchinski

While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program.

6.5

Tsarevich Aleksey

May 23, 1996

Tsarevich Alexei was one of the smartest people in the state. His father Peter hoped that he would take his place, but Alexei tried with all his might to remain out of power and wished for ordinary human happiness.

7.0

Karenina & I

Feb 24, 2017

The actor Gøril Mauseth goes on a 11.000 kilometer travel with the Trans-Siberian to play Anna Karenina in a new language in Leo Tolstoj's Russia, discovering the language, and the reasons Tolstoj wrote what he wrote, changing her forever.

8.0

Operation "Wedding"

Oct 19, 2017

Leningrad, 1970. A group of young Jewish dissidents plot to hijack an empty plane and escape the USSR. Caught by the KGB a few steps from boarding, they were sentenced to years in the gulag and two were sentenced to death; they never got on a plane. 45 years later, filmmaker Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov reveals the compelling story of her parents, leaders of the group, "heroes" in the West but "terrorists" in Russia, even today.

6.8

Belarus: An Ordinary Dictatorship

Mar 18, 2018

It’s the last dictatorship of Europe, caught in a Soviet time-warp, where the secret police is still called the KGB and the president rules by fear. Disappearances, political assassinations, waves of repression and mass arrests are all regular occurances. But while half of Belarus moves closer to Russia, the other half is trying to resist…

7.4

Enemy at the Gates

Feb 28, 2001

A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.

8.0

Andrei Rublev

Dec 16, 1966

An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually gains a reputation for his art. But after Rublev witnesses a brutal battle and unintentionally becomes involved, he takes a vow of silence and spends time away from his work. As he begins to ease his troubled soul, he takes steps towards becoming a painter once again.

No Image Available

0.0

Super-GAU Tschernobyl - Sarkophag fuer die Ewigkeit?

Apr 25, 2018

No overview available.

7.5

Lenin and the Other Story of the Russian Revolution

Feb 28, 2017

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…

0.0

People of Russia

Dec 26, 1942

This FitzPatrick Miniature visits the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the largest geographically unbroken political unit in the world, covering one-sixth of the world's land mass.

No Image Available

6.8

The Condemned

Jun 27, 2013

With unprecedented access, this documentary looks into the hidden world of one of Russia's most impenetrable and remote institutions - a maximum security prison exclusively for murderers. Deep inside the land of the gulags, this is the end of the line for some of Russia's most dangerous criminals - 260 men who have collectively killed nearly 800 people. The film delves deep into the mind and soul of some of these prisoners. In brutally frank and uncensored interviews the inmates speak of their crimes, life and death, redemption and remorselessness, insanity and hope. The film tracks them though their unrelenting days over several months, lifting the veil on one of Russia's most secretive subcultures to reveal what happens when a man is locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day, for life. A startling insight into inscrutable minds and the forbidding world they have been condemned to. (Storyville)

0.0

Barbarossa: Hitler Turns East

Aug 6, 2007

Hitler's invasion of Russia was one of the landmark events of World War II. This documentary reveals the lead-up to the offensive, its impact on the war and the brinksmanship that resulted from the battle for Moscow. Rare footage from both German and Russian archives and detailed maps illustrate the conflict, while award-winning historian and author John Erickson provides insight into the pivotal maneuvers on the eastern front.

7.5

Love and Death

Jun 10, 1975

In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon.

6.6

War and Peace

Aug 21, 1956

The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.

6.0

Children of Chernobyl

Jan 1, 1991

Mothers and doctors speak out about the grim reality of life in the five years following the Chernobyl disaster. In children, doctors witnessed a massive increase of recurrent infections, baldness, as well as leukaemia and other cancers.

7.0

Life After People

Jan 21, 2008

In this special documentary that inspired a two-season television series, scientists and other experts speculate about what the Earth, animal life, and plant life might be like if, suddenly, humanity no longer existed, as well as the effect humanity's disappearance might have on the artificial aspects of civilization.

0.0

Chernobyl and Fukushima: The Lesson

Oct 30, 2016

Chernobyl 1986. A nuclear reactor exploded, spewing out massive quantities of radiation into the atmosphere. Within days, the pollution had spread across Europe. Living on land contaminated with radioactivity would be a life-changing ordeal for the people of Belarus, but also for the Sami reindeer herders of central Norway. It even affected the Gaels of the distant Hebrides. Five years ago there was a meltdown at the Fukushima reactor, and thousands of Japanese people found their homes, fields and farms irradiated, just as had happened in Europe. This international documentary, filmed in Belarus, Japan, the lands of Norway's Sami reindeer herders and in the Outer Hebrides, poses the question: what lessons have we learned?

7.0

Alexander Nevsky

Nov 24, 1938

When German knights invade Russia, Prince Alexander Nevsky must rally his people to resist the formidable force. After the Teutonic soldiers take over an eastern Russian city, Alexander stages his stand at Novgorod, where a major battle is fought on the ice of frozen Lake Chudskoe. While Alexander leads his outnumbered troops, two of their number, Vasili and Gavrilo, begin a contest of bravery to win the hand of a local maiden.

6.8

Panfilov's 28 Men

Nov 24, 2016

USSR, November, 1941. Based on the account by Vasiliy Koroteev this is the story of Panifilov's Twenty-Eight, a group of twenty-eight Red Army soldiers commanded by General Ivan Panfilov, that stopped the advance on Moscow of a column of fifty-four Nazi tanks of the 11th Panzer Division for several days. Though lightly armed they fight tirelessly and defiantly, with uncommon bravery and unwavering dedication, to protect Moscow and their Motherland.