Attempts to reclaim the past, opportunities to better know relatives and ourselves – in our selection of inspiring domestic films released over the past few years.

Russian cinema can be meaningless and ruthless. It can be touching and gloomy. And sometimes – motivating. Here are 10 positive and inspiring Russian films of recent years that will help you restore faith in happiness and the possibilities of domestic cinema.

“Distant Close” (2022)

School geography teacher and avid gardener Boris Petrovich (Evgeny Syty) receives a smartphone as a birthday gift from his son. Boris Petrovich, who shuns everything modern, is not exactly thrilled with the gift and grumbles at his son for being inattentive. But after a while, through the gadget, the elderly geographer meets a fellow vegetable lover – Nadezhda (Elena Yakovleva). The trouble is, she lives in the Moscow region, and Boris Petrovich has to travel all the way from Khabarovsk Krai. He persuades his son, who is transporting cars, to give him a lift to his destination and sets off on an adventure.

A touching, funny, sometimes desperately naive but very heartfelt road movie about escaping loneliness, getting closer to loved ones, and about a person's ability to turn their life around and boldly move toward new horizons. The film will definitely appeal to those who want to spend a quiet evening with family and friends.

“Young Man” (2022)

Vanya (Pavel Tabakov) is already 30, but his past successes at school and university haven't led to a successful life. His wife cheats on him, he doesn't get a promotion at work, and he learns that his former classmate, a loser, has suddenly become rich. This businessman (played masterfully by Danila Kozlovsky) organizes a competition for high school students with a multi-million prize, and Vanya decides to pretend to be a teenager and go to a school camp to win the money and finally fix his life.

Who among us hasn't felt nostalgic for the past? And what if there's a chance to go back to that past and make a good profit from it? Sounds like a plan – a plan for a perfect comedy of situations where experience clashes with teenage audacity, and the common variable is the song “Non Stop” by the band Reflex performed by “Poshlaya Molly”.

This film succeeds in almost everything: from Tabakov's well-calibrated role as an immature young man who, of course, will eventually realize that one must live in the present, to the numerous gags built on generational differences.

“Relatives” (2021)

Another road movie in our collection, this time from the director of the series “World. Friendship. Gum” Ilya Aksyonov, with a script written by Zhora Kryzhovnikov. According to the plot, the father of a large family (Sergey Burunov) learns about a serious illness and decides to go to the Grushinsky Festival to possibly perform his song for Oleg Mityaev one last time. He once had such a chance, but something didn't work out.

On this trip, Burunov's hero takes his entire family, and according to the genre model, the relatives finally get to say everything to each other that has been left unsaid for so long. Along the way, they learn a lot of new things about their loved ones.

A slightly wild but terribly charming film by Aksyonov is another benefit performance by Sergey Burunov, who harmonizes perfectly with any environment, and in “Relatives” he also complements the rich color of the Central Russian Upland. The film has both funny and sad moments, and you genuinely worry about the characters as if they were your own relatives.

“Yura the Janitor” (2023)

Fashion photographer Roman (Denis Vlasenko) gets into an unpleasant situation that forces him to leave Moscow and return home to Ufa. In his hometown, he is awaited by his beloved grandmother, his mother who ignores his profession, and a naive, mentally disabled janitor Yura (Anton Kuznetsov), whom Roman's grandmother supports. The photographer decides to experiment and shoots Yura in the image of a rich kid, supposedly for the cover of GQ. This joke goes viral, and by morning the guys become famous.

The story might seem far-fetched if you didn't know it's based on real events (just search “Yura the Janitor” and you'll find that very photo and everything that followed). But even that isn't what makes the film wonderful. It is endlessly optimistic and bright. It seems to say that you can find a way out of any life situation, no matter how crazy it may seem. And the talent of actor Kuznetsov becomes more evident with each new role – it seems there is no impossible task for him, and here it is especially noticeable.

“A Couple from the Future” (2021)

Evgeny (Sergey Burunov) and Alexandra (Maria Aronova) have been married for over 20 years. It's 2040, and some processes in society have become more complicated. For example, you can't just get a divorce anymore – you need to have a decent social status and enough money. Evgeny has long given up on family life and openly likes his neighbor's photos on social media, while Alexandra nags her husband about his wasted youth. Tension grows every day, and during another terrible quarrel, lightning strikes them, miraculously throwing them back in time 20 years. Zhenya and Sasha get a chance to prevent themselves from getting married, changing their fate forever.

“A Couple from the Future” is an unpretentious but very positive, life-affirming film by director Alexei Nuzhny, who has long won the hearts of viewers with simple and engaging stories about life in the provinces. This lively, emotional family rom-com reminds us once again how important it is to talk about what's bothering us and to listen to each other.

“She's Gone” (2023)

Muscovite Anya (Olga Lerman) is experiencing a millennial crisis, feeling that everything she does is not what she always dreamed of. She leaves her boyfriend and her usual life, takes a bicycle and her beloved dachshund, and sets off across the country to her mother, with whom she had a falling out long ago.

Another true story, another road movie. And it's no surprise – the genre is perfect for uplifting stories about finding oneself and for showcasing a series of situations that help understand key moments in life. Besides the philosophical side, Anton Maslov's “She's Gone” features many vivid characters, heartfelt episodes, and humorous sketches that you might only encounter while traveling across Russia.

“Only I'm Normal” (2021)

Young and enterprising director of the children's camp “Red Falcon” Igor (Anton Bogdanov) decides to close the health resort for selfish reasons. To make it look legitimate on paper, the camp is declared unsafe and unsuitable for children's recreation. But a group of teenagers with special needs, who arrived at the camp on vouchers just as it was closing, didn't know about this. Ordinary persuasion and then direct threats didn't work on them, so Igor, as a last resort, brings in street-raised teenagers to the camp.

Anton Bogdanov's directorial debut (Antokha from “Real Boys”) could have turned into another heavy drama about the difficulties of upbringing, social stratification, and the conflict between fathers and children. But the director deliberately avoided a gloomy narrative, creating a life-affirming, sunny, and quite funny film that speaks about serious matters in the language of empathy and humor.

“I'm Losing Weight” (2018)

Anya (Alexandra Bortich) loves to eat and can't do anything about it. But after her boyfriend dumps her, she decides to lose weight at all costs and become loved again, and happy as well.

“I'm Losing Weight” is a great example of motivating cinema. And it motivates not just to lose weight, although that theme serves as the plot's setup, but to change your life for the better. You could say it contains a whole collection of useful tips on how to treat yourself, your hobbies, and your surroundings. Sometimes the conclusions from these tips can be sad, sometimes funny, just as life itself is not made up of only one color of sorrow or happiness.

“Dad” (2020)

Young Muscovite Maxim (Stas Starovoytov) rushes to the airport to meet his father (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), who finally decided to visit his son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren, and also to celebrate his anniversary with him. But at the last moment, it turns out that Maxim's father never made the trip, preferring to stay home. Then Maxim grabs his family and goes to him, reminiscing along the way about his dad's parenting methods and involuntarily comparing them with his own.

“Dad” is a comedy with a hint of the harsh realism of the 90s, where you don't need to look for deep meaning – everything is on the surface. The film is made in the format of anecdotes – short and funny stories with a mandatory punchline at the end, but mostly viewers aged roughly 30-40 will laugh at them. All the objects in the film, from the carpet on the wall to the triangular milk cartons, seem long forgotten, but at the first glance at the texture of “Dad,” everything becomes tangible again. Moreover, this film is not just about a father and son and the generational gap. It's a film about the country and about people trying to make sense of the changes that have befallen them, and most importantly, to understand how to live with them.

“Burn!” (2017)

Alevtina (Inga Oboldina), a worker at a women's prison, secretly dreams of singing on a big stage, and one day she is given a karaoke machine for her anniversary. Happy Alevtina is still shy about an audience, so she sings into the gifted microphone in proud solitude. But at some point, she is secretly filmed. The video instantly goes viral, and soon Alevtina is invited to the country's main song competition, where she can show her talent to millions of viewers.

“Burn!” is an emotional, lively, coherent film with a smooth, polished picture and a well-written story. In some moments, the film's director Kirill Polukhin deceives the viewer and delivers an absolutely naive ending. But the flow of the story doesn't suggest any other. Everything here is imbued with optimism and a bright faith in miracles.