Silver Skates (2020)

Russian cinema has exploded with big budget spectacles since the new millennium and the fantasy drama Silver Skates (2020) is the latest in a long line of Russian films that take fantastical liberties with historical events. Set at the tail end of the 19th century in the city of Stalingrad—then known as St. Petersburg—the film examines the actual winter phenomenon wherein the frozen lakes and rivers of the city were used as skating paths and all manner of pop-up businesses would inhabit those same frozen lakes and rivers. 18-year old Matvey (Fedor Fedotov) is a dirt poor skating delivery boy working for a bakery, whose only prized possession in the world is a pair of—you guessed it—silver skates left to him by his lamplighter father before he died. When he is falsely accused of stealing goods he was supposed to deliver—they were actually stolen from him—he is fired from his job and left to fend for himself on the mean streets of St. Petersburg. He falls in with a young group of pickpockets, led by the ambitious revolutionary Alex (Yuriy Borisov), and one day crosses paths with the beautiful Alice (Sonya Priss), the rebellious daughter of a high ranking government official. All of these various threads get pulled together on a collision course with history and destiny, though sadly there's no male nudity whatsoever in this flick! Must be those strict Russian censors, although there is a scene where Fedor Fedotov bulges out in a pair of period appropriate long johns! Looks like Fedor's got himself quite a long john himself, if you catch our drift!