Vera is a young woman in the small industrial wasteland of a Ukrainian city who lives with her working-class family in a crowded apartment and dreams of a better life. Though a local “good” boy likes her, she rejects him in favor of a young student, Sergei, who becomes her lover and then fiancé. When efforts to introduce him to her family prove to be a disaster, Vera attempts an overdose of booze and pills only to be rescued by her successful Moscow- based brother and Sergei. At film's end, Sergei is moving in with her and her father keels over of a heart attack.

Little Vera [Malen'kaya Vera). Directed by Vasily Pichul; written by Maria Khmelik; cinematography by Yefim Reznikov; production design by Vladimir Pasternak; music by Vladimir Matetsky. Cast: Natalia Negoda, Andrei Sokolov, Liudmila Zaitseva, and Yuri Nazarov. Color, 135 min. Gorky Studios production, 1988.

7. Vasily Pichul, director of the glasnost smash hit Little Vera (1988), never forgets that Vera also means “faith” as he observes the drama of his heroine (Natalya Negoda, left). (Photo: Kinocenter and Sovexportfilm.)

There are planes that take off without needing a runway. So it was when director Vasily Pichul and scriptwriter Maria Khmelik launched Little Vera(1988). Somehow they escaped all meetings and conferences, all special places where young cinema is supposed to be “bred.” They bypassed all the rules and made no promises; they just created a clever, bold film. They made it as if there were no cinema before them, as if they saw everything for the first time.