"Actor: Zhanna Prokhorenko"

• Ballad Of A Soldier (Region 2) | DVD | (29/01/2007) from £11.30   |  Saving you £8.69 (43.50%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Nominated at the 1962 Academy Awards for Best Screenplay this Russian classic won many international film awards on its release most notably a BAFTA Award for Best Film. The perfect companion piece to The Cranes Are Flying the storyline highlights the effects of war on individuals as well as that of a nation being dragged to its knees. In the middle of the Second World War Alyosha (Vladimir Ivashov) is commended for destroying two German tanks. Rather than take a medal he requests a four-day pass to visit his mother. The film is about this journey and the life enhancing encounters therein. Produced in 1959 it would have been understandable if the film became a vehicle for the Cold War propaganda of the time but director Grigory Chukhrai manages to avoid that trap instead painting his characters as flawed human individuals trying to survive the catastrophic upheaval in which they find themselves.

• Attack And Retreat | DVD | (07/06/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A movie based around the unsuccessful invasion of the Soviet Union by Italian forces during WWII.