New York, NY - In keeping with a long-standing tradition of presenting celebrated Russian film directors on DVD, from Eisenstein and Tarkovsky to Klimov and Alexander Sokurov, Kino International is proud to announce the release of the Nikita Mikhalkov Box Set spanning the brilliant, and controversial three-decade career of acclaimed Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov.

Kino's new deluxe five feature collection includes the Oscar® winning epic BURNT BY THE SUN (by arrangement with Sony Pictures), the international success OBLOMOV, and three films never before released on American DVD - A SLAVE OF LOVE (1976), FIVE EVENINGS (1979), and WITHOUT WITNESS (1983).

As part of an ongoing exclusive arrangement with Ruscico, the Russian Cinema Council, Kino International will release a companion Nikita Mikhalkov box set, featuring three additional as yet unreleased on DVD Mikhalkov's features in 2011. With the exception of BURNT BY THE SUN and OBLOMOV, none of the films in either box set will be available as individual discs. The first box set prebooks on August 2, with a street date of September 21. The SRP for the five-film set is $74.95.

Born to a family whose artistic and political preeminence stretches back for generations, Nikita Mikhalkov (b. 1945) was already and accomplished actor when he followed his brother, director Andrey Konchalovsky, into the Soviet State Film school VGIK to study under Andre Tarkovsky's mentor Mikhail Romm.

His feature-film directing debut, AT HOME AMONG STRANGERS, STRANGER AT HOME (1974), earned him an acknowledgement from Variety as "a director to watch." And from that point onwards, Mikhalkov tackledhis directorial assignments with the same ingenuity and intelligence displayed in his feature debut, all of which were made within a state-run Soviet film industry, notorious for capriciously slashing or inflating budgets, canceling projects and shelving completed work for political reasons.

A SLAVE OF LOVE (1976) was followed by AN UNFINISHED PIECE FOR PLAYER PIANO (included in Box Set #2), a universally acclaimed Chekov adaptation, followed in 1977. OBLOMOV (1980) was released on the heels of FIVE EVENINGS, a play adaptation shot on a handful of sets in only a few weeks while the cast and crew of OBLOMOV awaited a script mandated change of seasons.
 
Mikhalkov's first contemporarily-set film FAMILY RELATIONS ( in Box Set #2) , a fish out of water comedy about a provincial grandmother's visit to Moscow starring legendary Soviet actress Nonna Mordyukova (Aleksandr Askoldov's COMMISSAR), followed in 1981. WITHOUT WITNESS, a brilliant and bruising two-character relationship forensic, was released two years later.
 
DARK EYES (1987), netted star Marcello Mastroianni an Academy Award ®  nomination and a Cannes Best Actor award. And the 1994 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar® and Cannes Grand Prix winner BURNT BY THE SUN, starring Mikhalkov and his then eight year old daughter Nadia, remains the highest grossing Russian film ever made.
 
Mikhalkov's most recent films are 12, an adaptation of 12 ANGRY MEN, and BURNT BY THE SUN 2, which premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Having flourished through the Soviet 70's, Perestroika, Glasnost, the end of Soviet Russia, and the rise of Russian Nationalism at home, while enduring the ever changing marketplace realities of International filmmaking abroad, Nikita Mikhalkov, "the Russian Spielberg" will remain a force to be reckoned with on both sides of the camera indefinitely.

The Nikita Mikhalkov Box Set

A SLAVE OF LOVE (1976)
Running Time : 94 mins.
Aspect Ratio: 1:37:1
Color

Within the sun-drenched beauty of the Crimean summer, a Russian movie crew grapples with film shortages, Tsarist secret police scrutiny, and their own dysfunctional dynamic to churn out one more silent melodrama before the revolution in Moscow consumes the nation.

While awaiting the arrival of her missing co-star husband, silent film diva Olga (a character inspired by tragic real-life screen siren Vera Kholodnaya), a star so luminous that dissidents risk arrest to see her latest film "Slave of Love," becomes enmeshed in a romance with handsome young cameraman Pototsky.  But what begins as a casual dalliance becomes an awakening as Olga's lover reveals his true allegiance.  Ultimately, their romance leads Olga to an unforgettable high-speed date with destiny that unites movie heroism with historic martyrdom.       

 "An unexpected masterpiece."
- New York Times

"A Slave of Love is a luminous film with wit, passion, breathtaking beauty, and sun-struck images."
- Newsweek

"A very funny, very moving Russian film"
- Variety

SPECIAL FEATURES

* Interview with Nikita Mikhalkov
* Interview with film composer Eduard Artemyev  
* "Vera," a featurette about legendary Russian silent film star Vera Kholodnaya
* Filmographies
* Photo Album
* Spoken Languages: Russian Mono, Russian 5.1, English VO 5.1, French VO 5.1
* Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Italian.


FIVE EVENINGS (1979)
Running Time: 103 mins.
Aspect Ratio: 1:37:1
Color

Five Evenings DVD Cover

During a brief visit to late 50's Moscow, Alexander rings the bell at a threshold he hasn't crossed since before the war. Wistful nostalgia collides with kitchen-sink reality when Tamara (Ludmila Gurchenko, Siberiade), the dawning love Alexander left behind 17 years before, answers the door.

Reunited within a brilliantly recreated Khruschev-era communal apartment, the couple struggles to rekindle a still gestating romance with neither the mature bond of trust nor the blind hope of youth to guide them. The ensuing quintet of days and nights before Alexander must return to his life in the Soviet provinces lifts successive veils of self-deception and pain, separating past from present and longing from love.

Conceived, adapted, and rehearsed while Mikhalkov was simultaneously making the costume drama Oblomov and shot in a mere 25 days during a scheduled lull in production, Five Evenings is a brilliantly cinematic and achingly poignant mounting of Alexander Volodin's comedy-drama stage masterpiece and a valedictory and heartfelt celebration of  the risks and rewards of second chances.

SPECIAL FEATURES

* Interview with Nikita Mikhalkov
* Interview with writer, actor and production designer Alexander Adabashyan     
* Filmographies
* Photo Album
* Spoken Languages: Russian Mono, Russian 5.1, English VO 5.1, French VO 5.1
* Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch.


WITHOUT WITNESS (1983)
Running Time:  95 mins.
Aspect Ratio: 1:37:1
Color

Without Witness DVD Cover

"A psychological war-of-words in the best tradition of Chekhov and Gorky," (Variety) Without Witness is an unflinchingly intimate and wickedly plotted two-actor tour de force pitting a divorced couple against each other and themselves.

Confining the action to a single highly realistic contemporary Moscow apartment setting, and relentlessly ramping up the stakes through confessional camera asides from both characters, "Nikita Mikhalkov's best film" (Variety) transforms from a sharp theatrical chamber piece into a nail-biting pressure cooker.

While watching TV at home alone, a woman (Irina Kupchenko) receives a visit from her now remarried ex-husband (Mikhail Ulyanov). But as banalities about old friends, old times, and their absent teenage son give way to increasingly confrontational verbal barbs, the threadbare camouflage of hospitality and cheap nostalgia masking the couple's raw wounds and harsh agendas is ripped away.

Essaying a script that evokes Ingmar Bergman's Scenes >From a Marriage and Edward Albee and Harold Pinter's gloves-off relationship dramas, "Irina Kupchenko and Mikhail Ulyanov are more than excellent, they are impeccable." (Village Voice).

"...places (Mikhalkov) at the forefront of contemporary Soviet cinema."
- Variety

SPECIAL FEATURES

* Interview with Nikita Mikhalkov
* Interview with actress Irina Kupchecnko   
* Filmographies
* Photo Album
* Spoken Languages: Russian 5.1, Russian Mono,
English VO Mono, French VO Mono
* Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portugese

OBLOMOV (1980)
Running Time: 140 mins.
Aspect Ratio: 1:37:1
Color

Mikhalkov's reputation as an actor's director, adroitly guiding his players through complex material and obtaining some of the finest performances in Soviet cinema is once again confirmed in Oblomov, his moving and authentic distillation of Ivan Goncharov's great 19th century tragi-comic novel. Oleg Tabakov brings to the title role a delicate dignity as the gentle aristocrat who would rather sleep than compete in a modern world of expanding industrialization -- a character lovable and ludicrous.

And Elena Solovei invests with giddy charm her role of the delightful country belle, Olga, with whom Oblomov has a brief springtime of passion. Set in glittery St. Petersburg during the heyday of the czars, Oblomov is also full of enchanting scenes of lush interiors and ravishing landscapes. The delicate story about friendship, family, and daydreams becomes a warmly nostalgic portrait of Russia before the turn of the century.

"A grand masterpiece ... A work of supreme art!"
- The New York Post

"Brilliant ... marvelous ... a triumph."
- Newsweek

BURNT BY THE SUN (1994)
Running Time: 135 mins.
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Color

Mikhalkov stars alongside his 8 year old daughter Nadia (delivering what the New Yorker called a "sharp-eyed, wholly uncute performance") in a tragic Oscar® winning, drama about the last happy season in the life of a Bolshevik hero's family. The year is 1936, and Stalin's purges are in full swing.

Despite Sergei Kotov's (Mikhalkov) reputation and revolutionary record, the arrival of his wife's former lover, an agent of government police, is cause for more than just jealousy.

Incorporating Mikhalkov's particular understated mastery of ensemble acting along with touches of magic realism and blockbuster pyrotechnics BURNT BY THE SUN is " a work that began in the rustling spirit of Chekhov [and] ends like a Scorsese picture." (New Yorker)

"Exquisite, lyrical, and tough minded"
- The New York Times