Nikita Mikhalkov won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language film in 1995 with his Burnt by the Sun, a drama of an aging "old comrade" Bolshevik whose family is destroyed by a envious young rival and Stalin's purges. Now he is working on a sequel and celebrating his 60th birthday.

Burnt by the Sun sadly is probably the only film about the Stalin era many Westerners have ever seen. And this isn't for lack of source material. Perhaps what made Burnt by the Sun stick out was the gorgeous cinematography, the idyllic shots of the Russian landscape and family, suddenly shattered by spams of violence.

Russiablog has previously commented on the current state of the Russian film industry. Perhaps with the benefit of the Internet, Western distribution agreements and cheaper digital production, Russian cinema might again touch viewers around the world.