1986 film directed by Igor Maslennikov

Politically-tinted film about the pioneers of Soviet television shows Kovalov as an actor.
A film in which Oleg Kovalov performs as actor. The Paper Eyes of Prishvin, a politically-tinted film about the pioneers of Soviet television, is in fact one of the first manifestations of Russian post-modernism, in which playing with genres and leitmotifs has a leading role. Like the film Confession by Tengiz Abuladze, that was released slightly earlier, the film demythologises the ideology and the aesthetics of the 'Grand Style', monumentalism in art. One of those who fell victim to that was Eisenstein, who is here portrayed as a caricature with a homosexual bent. In this film Oleg Kovalov plays the role of a symbolic Leningrad intellectual with glasses and a hat: a small victim of the great dictatorship. While he is not a professional actor, Kovalov manages to give his personality a timelessness that brings him unexpectedly close to the figures created by Nabokov.

Russia, 1916. Be it by craft or madness, Rasputin exercises power over the indecisive Nicholas, and the religious Czarina worships the Siberian as God. He manipulates the Czar in his relations with the Duma and influences the choice of a new premier. Rasputin assaults a baroness; her husband is jailed for defending her, and she must offer sexual favors to Rasputin to save her husband. The Czar finally orders Rasputin from St. Petersburg, but somehow he enters the palace and, in a disheveled trance, convinces the Czar to make a disastrous change in war strategy. A cadre of nobles take matters into their own hands and arrange a last dinner party for the interloping monk. Written by {[email protected]}