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This course will begin by exploring early Soviet masters of montage along with the pioneers of “mass” film who enjoyed greater success with audiences. We will watch films that deal with the experience of World War II and the generational shift that came with Khrushchev’s thaw, as well as arthouse cinema that practiced a more meditative cinematic sensibility. We will consider films that spoke to the excitement and changing values that defined the era of Perestroika and Russia’s post-Soviet experiments with democracy and capitalism before concluding with films that shed light on the neo-authoritarian, neo-imperialist Russia of the present. We will devote attention to films from other countries in the Soviet and post-Soviet world.