29 October - 7 November, Apollo Piccadilly
The 4th Russian Film starts this Friday, 29 October, featuring the best in new Russian film, documentaries and animation and opens with The Ugly Duckling, master animator Garry Bardin's sparky and affecting stop-motion animation with Orwellian overtones. All films are shown in Russian with English subtitles.

4th Russian Film Festival, 29 October – 7 November Dear Friends! The Russian Film Festival is getting ready to present London with this year's best premieres in Russian cinema. The Main Programme As always, the main festival programme showcases the best Russian films, award-winners at major international and Russian film festivals. These films include, 'Silent Souls' (Ovsyanki), directed by Alexei Fedorchenko and winner of three prizes at the Venice Film Festival, 'How I Ended This Summer' by Alexei Popogrebsky, awarded prizes for best actor and best cinematography at the Berlinale, 'One War' by Vera Glagoleva, Grand Prix winner at Sofia International Film Festival and Russia's nomination for the Oscars and Svetlana Proscurina's latest film 'The Truce', winner of the main prize at Kinotavr. As in previous years, guests include directors, producers and actors who come to London specially to present their films at the festival. Documentaries – 'Noughties Art' This year's documentary programme sums up the last decade with screenings of the ten best Russian documentary films, one for each year. The programme is presented by the great director and documentary maker, Vitaly Mansky, president of the ArtDocFest. Animation Alongside the main programme and documentaries, we have also put together a comprehensive and diverse programme of animation. As part of our festival 'Astral dogs Belka and Strelka' take a trip to outer space captained by director Inna Evlannikova, while Irina Evteeva, famous for her graceful and original style, brings 'Little Tragedies' to the screen. These films will capture the hearts of adults and childen alike. As well as an extensive programme of full length animation, we will be screening a special programme for our young audiences, presenting the best of award-winning Russian animated films of recent years Special Screenings This year's film festival also includes a retrospective of the great actor and director Sergei Bondarchuk's films and the works of Leo Tolstoy on film, as well as a retrospective of masters of Soviet and Russian animation. Venue For the fourth year in a row the Russian Film Festival will take place at the Apollo Piccadilly, one of London's best cinemas.

Dmitry Bykov will participate in the Salisbury International Arts Festival and Hay Festival of Arts and Literature:
Friday 28 May, 11:30am
Salisbury International Arts Festival
Saturday 29 May, 1pm
Hay Festival of Arts and Literature

Fireworks in Moscow on 9 May 2010 to commemorate the 65th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945

Academia Rossica celebrates the 65th anniversary of the Victory together with the whole world and with all Russia. We have decided to put together a few links that we think help us to remember the importance of this day for humanity.

9 May is a very special day – Victory Day. It is particularly special for Russia, since of all countries it paid the heaviest price for its own freedom and for the freedom of other countries from fascism. This is our common victory. It became possible only thanks to the joint efforts of all allies and the struggle of those who fought against fascism in their own countries. On this day we celebrate life and freedom and commemorate those who gave up their lives for us during the World War II.

Yume Pictures and Academia Rossica are delighted to invite you to a special screening of the film 'A Room and a Half' at 8pm on 10 May at Cine Lumière, South Kensington, London, SW7 2DT, followed by Q&A with director Andrey Khrzhanovsky and actress Alisa Freyndlikh. It is a beautifully mesmerising film based on the life of the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky.

Come to hear Vladimir Tolstoy, great great grandson of Leo Tolstoy, in conversation with acclaimed writer James Meek.
Monday 19 April, 6.30pm at Waterstones Piccadilly

Tolstoy's spirit returns to ancient lands: James Meek finds the power that Count Leo Tolstoy still holds over Russia's soul beating strongly in the heart of the novelist's great great grandson - the new director of his old estate, Yasnaya Polyana

Is Tolstoy Alive? Vladimir Tolstoy in conversation with James Meek Monday 19 April, 6.30pm at Waterstones Piccadilly* Vladimir Tolstoy is the great great grandson of one of the biggest Russian writers – Leo Tolstoy. Since 1994 he has been the director of the Leo Tolstoy museum in Yasnaya Polyana. Vladimir is often seen as the official representative of Leo Tolstoy’s cultural heritage. In 2001 he made a famous appeal to the Russian Orthodox Church, petitioning the repeal of the excommunication of his famous ancestor – a historical event that in Vladimir Tolstoy’s view turned out to have a fatal effect on the whole of Russian society. Under Vladimir Tolstoy’s guidance Yasnaya Polyana has been set up not only as a museum documenting Leo Tolstoy’s life and literary work, but also as a place to keep the spirit of the great writer alive. Writers and intellectuals are regularly invited to take part in seminars and discuss the fundamental questions of life that for the great Russian writer were of such high importance. The museum also runs its own publishing house and offers translation grants to support new translations of Leo Tolstoy’s books. James Meek is a writer, critic and reporter living in London. He is the author of four novels and two collections of short stories. Between 1991 and 1999 he lived in Ukraine and Russia, where his 2005 novel The People's Act of Love was set. In 1994 he visited Vladimir Tolstoy at the ancestral Tolstoy estate in Yasnaya Polyana. His most recent book, We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, was awarded the Prince Maurice Prize. * Tickets to this event are £3, redeemable against purchase of any book. Call Waterstones Piccadilly on 020 7851 2400 to book tickets in advance

Red Pyramid
Russian Literature from the 21st Century
In this literary edition of ROSSICA, we are delighted to present the first English translations of new works by nine leading Russian writers. ROSSICA 19 introduces their work through extracts from six novels, recently published in Russia, and three short stories especially written for this anthology.

When Academia Rossica approached me to serve on the jury for their translation prize, I was excited and intrigued. What would the field be like, how many entries would there be, were there still publishers around in the West willing to produce translations of serious Russian works? The classics apart, was there more to Russian literature for English-speaking people than penguins and historical detectives? My caricature of the average Western reader's view of Russian literature today can perhaps be excused in part by my own education.

I was delighted and astonished when I received the invitation to be one of the judges of this year’s ‘Rossica’ Translation Prize. Delighted – because, by accepting, I would be able to indulge myself with a clear conscience in reading (or, as it often turned out, rereading) many works of Russian literature rather than doing what I all too often do – reading works about Russian literature (and various other things). Astonished – because I am not a prolific or high-profile translator of Russian literature, so I was unsure about why I had been chosen. However, not being known for false modesty, I did feel that I was reasonably well qualified for the work ahead.

Russian Gulliver is a publishing project designed to provide exposure to great new names in poetry, prose and essay-writing written in Russian regardless of country of residence. Their slogan ‘Our authors will become famous’ is born out in number of prizes and the amount of attention that their writers and readers receive. The publisher is interesting because it is run not by professional publishers, but by professional writers: the poet and prosaisist Vadim Mesiats and the writer Aleksands Davidov, who are closer to the creative realm.

By David Parkinson
Returning for a second year, Academia Rossica's Russian Film Festival boasts a programme of 10 London premieres that even surpasses the excellence of the inaugural slate. With several actors and directors guesting to discuss their work, this is an outstanding opportunity to assess the current state of one of the world's great film industries.

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Terekhov was born in June 1966 in the provincial town of Tula in Central Russia. After serving in the army he graduated in journalism from the Moscow State University. He soon won acclaim as a writer with his stories about his army experiences and about the early perestroika chaos he was witnessing.

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Terekhov was born in June 1966 in the provincial town of Tula in Central Russia. After serving in the army he graduated in journalism from the Moscow State University. He soon won acclaim as a writer with his stories about his army experiences and about the early perestroika chaos he was witnessing.

Born in 1975 under his real name of Yevgeniy Nikolayevich Lavlinsky, Zakhar Prilepin grew up in a small village, Ilinka Skaponskovo, in Ryazan Province, not too distant from Nizhni Novgorod. He comes from a family of teachers and nurses. After finishing at the Philology Department of Nizhni Novgorod State University he worked as a security guard and a journalist before joining the Russia’s ‘Special Purpose Police Squad’ (the OMON) and, as a captain, serving on military deployments in Chechnya during 1996 and 1999.

by Various
Translated by Peter Oram
Arc Publications, 2008, pp.132
An anthology of poems by the major literary figures in Russia, writing to, about, or in memory of other poets, following a tradition which started in the early years of the twentieth century and continued through the subsequent decades, more or less until the millennium.

by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Translated by Ignat Avsey
One World Classics, 2008, pp. 391
Oscar Wilde claimed that Humiliated and Insulted is not "at all inferior to the other great masterpieces" and Friedrich Nietzsche is said to have wept over it. Its construction is that of an intricate detective novel, and the reader is plunged into a world of moral degradation, childhood trauma and, above all, unrequited love and irreconcilable relationships.

by Ivan Bunin
Translated by Hugh Aplin
One World Classics, 2008, pp. 324
One of the great achievements of twentieth-century Russian émigré literature, Dark Avenues - the culmination of a life's work of unrelenting challenge to Soviet dogma - took Bunin's poetic mastery of language to new heights.

by Alexander Pushkin
Translated by James E. Falen
Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.2015
'The people are silent' So ends Pushkin's great historical drama Boris Godunov, in which Boris's reign as Tsar witnesses civil strife and intrigue, brutality and misery. Its legacy is an uncertain future for the new Tsar whose inauguration is met with devastating silence by the people.

by Alexander Ikonnikov
Translated by Andrew Bromfield
Serpent's Tail; May 2007; pp.155
Lizka is a young Russian living an unexciting life in a backward rural town. After her first fleeting and unsatisfactory sexual experience sets the locals’ tongues wagging, she moves to a larger town – G – in search of a new life – and love.

by Andrey Platonov
Translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Angela Livingstone, Olga Meerson and Eric Naiman
New York Review of Books; 2007; pp. 58
The Soviet writer Andrey Platonov saw much of his work suppressed or censored in his lifetime. In recent decades, however, these lost works have reemerged, and the eerie poetry and poignant humanity of Platonov's vision have become ever more clear. For Nadezhda Mandelstam and Joseph Brodsky, Platonov was the writer who most profoundly registered the spiritual shock of revolution.

by Viktor Shklovsky
Translated by Shushan Avagyan
Dalkey Archive Press; 2007; pp. 428
One of the greatest literary minds of the twentieth century, Viktor Shklovsky writes the critical equivalent of what Ross Chambers calls "loiterature"—writing that roams, playfully digresses, moving freely between the literary work and the world.

By David Parkinson
Returning for a second year, Academia Rossica's Russian Film Festival boasts a programme of 10 London premieres that even surpasses the excellence of the inaugural slate. With several actors and directors guesting to discuss their work, this is an outstanding opportunity to assess the current state of one of the world's great film industries.

By David Parkinson
Returning for a second year, Academia Rossica's Russian Film Festival boasts a programme of 10 London premieres that even surpasses the excellence of the inaugural slate. With several actors and directors guesting to discuss their work, this is an outstanding opportunity to assess the current state of one of the world's great film industries.

Actor, 12
Son of the great Oleg Efremov (founder of the legendary Sovremennik Moscow Theatre), Mikhail Efremov is one of the most recognised and well-received contemporary actors.

Dir. Wild Field
Born in 1959, in Tbilisi. Mikhail is the grandson of the great Mikhail Kalatozov, a Georgain-Russian filmmaker, who defined the entire period in Soviet cinema with his groundbreaking films like ‘Cranes are Flying' (1958) and ‘Soy, Cuba' (1964).