Steep Steps (1957)

Contemporary Russia. After he flubs a penalty kick, a humiliated national soccer player quits the game. He flees to a small town, where he decides to coach their local team.

Shortly before the outbreak of WWI, a peasant from rural Russia arrives in St. Petersburg to find work.

On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, his ex-speechwriter and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.

Fate brings ordeals to characters that find themselves immersed in deep crisis; they must seek the strength to cope with adversity. In a remote and cold region of Russia, Galya, a middle-aged woman with a drinking problem, has been separated from her twin daughters and she wants them back. On the other hand, Grishka and Anton are a young couple who decide to get married, but right after the wedding their relationship is put to the test in a brutal way. Artyom longs to see his missing father, but his mother objects. There is only one element that brings all of these characters together: misfortune.

On a summer day in late 19th century Russia, a group of bourgeois friends and acquaintances gather at a dilapidated country estate.

Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one - from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.

A young Kyrgyz immigrant tries to eke out a living in Moscow after abandoning her newborn and fleeing the hospital.

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.