Klassiki Journal

You can enjoy interviews, videos and essays from guest filmmakers, critics and the team here. We’ll share insights into favourite films and help you mine the gold that is Klassiki.

In conversation: Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov’s Brother and the search for modern Tajik cinema

Interview

Šimon Holý on And Then There Was Love…, his improvised take on modern heartbreak

Ukraine’s Freefilmers on anti-capitalism, resistance, and “decolonial cinema”

Interview

Kung fu gospel: Estonian eccentric Rainer Sarnet returns with The Invisible Fight

Interview

“Our own national tragedy”: Andrei Kutsila on the crisis for independent Belarusian film

Interview

Underground fairy tales: Kote Kalandadze explores Tbilisi’s dark side in The Drummer

“Moments of paradise”: Sergei Dvortsevoy’s stories from the post-Soviet fringe

Interview

Native Edition: reflections on indigenous cinema in the post-Soviet space

Kyrgyzstan’s Aktan Arym Kubat confronts home truths in This Is What I Remember

Interview

Where next for “post-Soviet” film? goEast Festival curators on working through war

Interview

Mstyslav Chernov discusses filmmaking under fire for his 20 Days in Mariupol

Interview

Goran Stolevski delves into his Balkan folk-horror hybrid You Won’t Be Alone

Interview

Shengelaia at 90: personal reflections on a Georgian film icon

Interview

“Still the second sex”: A Room of My Own and female intimacy in today’s Georgia

Interview

Laila Pakalniņa on the making of Dawn, her fever dream of Soviet film history

Interview

Lana Gogoberidze on women’s cinema and her trailblazing career

Interview

Nora Martirosyan and Garegin Papoyan on filming the ironies of Stepanakert airport

Interview

Julia Blue’s Roxy Toporowych on wartime romance and the Ukrainian diaspora

Interview

Actor Yura Borisov on working with Kirill Serebrennikov and Covid-era shoots

Interview

Sakha Film: an interview with Dmitry Davydov

Interview

Sakha’s amateur film stars Zoya Popova and Stepan Petrov in their own words

Interview

Actor Maks Sukhanov on his career as Russia’s cinematic tough guy

Interview

Sergei Livnev on the wild 90s and returning to directing after 25 years

Interview

“Antonioni told me to sleep less”: Uzbek maestro Ali Khamraev on his unlikely career

Interview

Assel Aushakimova on queer filmmaking and the search for tradition in Kazakhstan

Interview

The Bull’s Boris Akopov on switching ballet for film and 90s nostalgia

Interview

Saodat Ismailova on her film 40 Days and Central Asian cinema traditions

Interview

Angelina Nikonova on her film Twilight Portrait and life between Russia and America

Interview

No solemn monolith: Aleksandr Lungin on his debut film, Great Poetry