Unexpected Joy (1972)

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

Georgy is driving a load of freight into Russia when, after an unpleasant encounter with the police at a border crossing, he finds himself giving a lift to a strange old man with disturbing stories about his younger days in the Army. After next picking up a young woman who works as a prostitute and is wary of the territory, Georgy finds himself lost, and despite asking some homeless men for help, he’s less sure than he was before of how to make his way back where he belongs. As brutal images of violence and alienation cross the screen, Georgy’s odyssey becomes darker and more desperate until it reaches an unexpected conclusion.

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

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.

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.

Agnes and her two sisters struggle through a day in a home overrun by gamblers, thieves, and johns.

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

A shell-shocked Afghanistan war hero named Ivan Skryabin (Mikhail Skryabin) spends his days stoking the fire in a giant coal furnace. When he isn’t tending the flames, he keeps busy with other activities. He works on a historical novel. His adult daughter Sasha (Aida Tumutova) comes to visit. Local kids come to gaze at the flames. Gangsters, including a former Army sergeant (Aleksandr Mosin) and a sniper known as Bison (Yuri Matveyev), drop by to add special kindling to the fire.

The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.