This volume of the World Film Locations series explores the location Moscow, a megapolis with over 12 million inhabitants and a city with a rich and varied history that has not always been the country's capital. First mentioned in 1147, the town was one of the principal cities of the ancient Rus and had come under frequent attack from the Mongols since the 13th century. Under Ivan III Moscow became the capital city, which it remained until 1712 when St Petersburg was founded, only to dominate for the following 200 years the cultural life of 18th and 19th century literature and the arts. In 1918, following the Revolution, Moscow became the capital of the Soviet Union and remained capital of the Russian Federation after 1991. Moscow's status as capital, from 1918 to the present, thus more or less coincides with the life of the silver screen, since there are only few preserved filmic depictions of the city from pre-Revolutionary years. In the Soviet era, film often served propaganda purposes; therefore, the image of Moscow on celluloid echoes the political ambitions of the country, and film locations and settings reflect the cultural agenda of the times.

Alexander Sokurov's 'Russian Ark' is generally acclaimed as a milestone in cinematography. In this film Sokurov reversed the idea of montage, creating instead the sensation of an uninterrupted flow of time encompassing three centuries of Russia's cultural history through a single, 90-minute take. Yet this film is but one milestone in the work of this versatile director. Since the 1990s, Sokurov's films have had international recognition at film festivals and through foreign distribution. In this, the first English-language book to cover Sokurov's full oeuvre, leading scholars on Sokurov unravel his work on documentaries; his early films and literary adaptations; his trilogy on leaders focussing on the decaying body; his films on passing youth and approaching age; and, of course, 'Russian Ark'. The book also provides samples of the major Russian-language studies of Sokurov's films to provide the reader with an insight into Russian approaches to Sokurov.