Russia

Leto (pronounced “lee-air-ta”) translates into ‘summer’ or ‘summertime’. It’s this choice of title that foreshadows what is an intrinsically reminiscent film. Based on the memoirs of Natalya Naumenko, Kirill Serebrennikov’s Leto invites the audience to 1980s Leningrad where, through Natalya’s eyes, we learn about the development of the city’s lively rock...

Halloween is celebrated annually on the 31st of October and whilst it might seem like just an excuse to dress up, or for an all-nighter at Crisis, the tradition is much more widespread. Rather than trick-or-treating sweets from the neighbors you never speak to, for many, the festival’s importance...

Gwen takes a look at the effect the current conflicts in the Middle East are having on the oil industry,...

The football World Cup is set to kick off in Russia this year, held in a country which openly opposes homosexuals and other ethnic backgrounds. FIFA has handed football’s most illustrious cup to a country in which there is no guarantee over fan safety and the preservation of human...

In the last month, the balance of global power has shifted again – minutely but perceptibly, making it the job of the curious observer to reassess the lie of the land. The political reverberations caused by the poisoning of one Russian ex-double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter on...

After causing uproar in Russia with his 2014 Oscar-winning film Leviathan, director Andrey Zvyaginstev returns with Loveless, a bleak, uncompromising story about a couple, Zhenya and Boris, going through a divorce and how they cope with the disappearance of their child, Alexey. Loveless has already obtained the Cannes Film...

Dark, disturbing, and dangerously comic are just a few ways to describe NNT’s production of John Hodge’s play, Collaborators. The audience are instantly captivated by the surreal journey into the bizarre imagination of the writer as he loses himself in a chilling and oddly comic relationship with Stalin. The...