Valery Todorovsky Movies: Top 3 Performances by a Successful Director

Odessa, August 1970. A heat wave. The city is full of tourists. Boris, a journalist and foreign affairs specialist, and his eight-year-old son Valeri arrive from Moscow to visit Boris’ in-laws, Grigori Iosifovich and Raisa Irovna Davidov. But on the day of their arrival, Odessa declares a quarantine due to a cholera outbreak, and the city is closed off. Having come for a few days, the son-in-law is plunged into a world changed by serious danger. Family secrets will be disclosed, improbable events happen, and a great forbidden love starts.

Young and extremely talented dancer Yulya Olshanskaya from a small mining town draws a “happy ticket”: she is noticed by a former ballet dancer Pototsky and he promises her a future of great ballerina, worthy of the main stage of the country. However, in order to become a diamond, anyone, even the most outstanding brilliant, needs to be cut, and the way to the legendary stage of The Bolshoi Theatre for Yulya lies through the walls of the ballet school, where the more capricious teacher Galina Mikhailovna Beletskaya takes custody of the rebellious provincial. Turning into a prima will require incredible self-denial, and Yulya herself will have to make sure that the big ballet is not only the whiteness of the packs, the gold of the boxes and the slip of silk ribbons. But no obstacles will stop the one who has the big dream.

In this hit Russian musical, a group of friends flaunts Soviet authority in 1950s Moscow by embracing jazz. When Communist Mels falls for Polly, a free-spirited jazz fan, he risks losing his party membership by associating with her rebellious crew.