Full of characters and details of macabre Soviet collective farm life, Muratova’s debut feature centers on the elderly and wise head of a “kolkhoz” (collective farm) who is suspicious of bureaucratic meddling.

Shirking dominant socialist realist conventions with a near-dreamlike structure of flashbacks and shifts in points of view, Brief Encounters is an unfolding meditation on longing that incurred the wrath of censors, who promptly suppressed the film for 20 years. Preceded by Volodymyr Bortko’s The Doctor, featuring Muratova in an acting role.

Completed in 1971 but not released until perestroika in 1987, Kira Muratova’s fourth feature is a majestic psychodrama centering on the relationship between a mother and a son and rendered with a borderline avant-garde sense of aesthetic freedom and formal experimentation.

Set in the 19th century, Among Grey Stones follows a family attempting to cope with the death of its young matriarch. Her husband, a judge, overcome by grief, becomes consumed by memories of his wife, resulting in his neglect of work and his children.

The first film made by Muratova free from censors during perestroika, Change of Fate is a crime story with themes of betrayal, sexism, and racial prejudice, offering a sharp, satirical critique of white supremacy.

Muratova’s most acclaimed film, about a syndrome that causes people to sleep at the moment they are made to suffer, and perhaps her most radical critical statement, won the Silver Bear when it premiered in the 1990 Berlin Film Festival.

The Sentimental Policeman revolves around a humble law enforcement officer who unexpectedly discovers a deep and overwhelming attachment toward an abandoned baby found in a cabbage patch.

Three Stories presents three tales of domestic murder. Originally, Muratova intended these stories to be read as “horror” but opted to exaggerate them within a grotesque style that renders them instead as ironic and farcical. Preceded by Muratova’s Letter to America.

Filmed during a time when Ukraine’s first wave of nouveau riche was emerging, Muratova’s absurdist psychocomedy about a house-sitter whose drunken lover is accidentally killed is driven by bizarre antics and repetitious, exaggerated speech.

The Tuner is a satirical crime drama about two swindlers—Andryusha, a poor musical instrument tuner, and Lina, the spoiled daughter of wealthy parents with whom Andryusha is in love.

Muratova tapped Bohdan Stupka, widely regarded as one of the greatest Ukrainian actors of his time, for an extraordinary performance in this two-part film that begins with the suicide of an actor that takes place backstage at a theater.

A young brother and sister, half-siblings who have recently lost their mother, are about to be separated to different orphanages. Unable to bear the thought of being apart, they escape into Kiev in search of their long-lost fathers.

Muratova’s final film, Eternal Homecoming is a meditation upon the director’s own perspectives and approaches with respect to acting, directing, and filmmaking.