(Pervye na lune). Think it was Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin? Well, think again, because as Alexei Fedorchenko's unsettling debut film reveals, a Soviet cosmopilot, Ivan Kharlamov, actually went there and back in 1938, piloting his experimental and highly secretive craft back to Chile, from where he undertook an arduous journey across the Pacific, through China and Mongolia, and finally into Mother Russia. First on the Moon is a satiric yet touching expression of an unfettered utopian spirit—a sense of the limitless possibilities of human ingenuity and imagination—that characterized many people's vision of the Soviet experiment before its grim realities settled in.

• Written by Aleksandr Gonorovskiy, Ramil Yamaleyev. Photographed by Anatoli Lesnikov. With Boris Vlasov, Viktoriya Ilyinskaya, Viktor Kotov, Andrei Osipov. (76 mins, In Russian with English subtitles, B&W/Color, 35mm, From Seagull Films)

Preceded by short:
Interplanetary Revolution (Mezhplanetnaya revolutsiya) (Z. Komissarenko, U. Merkulov, N. Hodataevy, U.S.S.R., 1924). Soundscape by Robbie Crabtree. So successful was Aelita upon its release that it earned its own cartoon spoof in the same year. Interplanetary Revolution doesn't just capitalize on that feature's popularity, however—it serves as a mild political corrective. In 1924, the year of Lenin's death, the Communist Party began to distance itself from the "world revolution" doctrine; therefore the notion of the rising Martian proletariat was just past due, and safe to ridicule. (9 mins, Silent with Russian intertitles and English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, From Seagull Films)

• (Total running time: 85 mins)