LAUSR

Abstract The Putin-era filmmakers sometimes referred to as the Russian “New Wave” or “Novye tikhie” (“New Quiets”) explore sensitive social issues while Russian society and culture are subject to increasing, soft-authoritarian ideological controls that (in contrast with the late Soviet period) rely on circumscription rather than coercion. This article examines the paradoxes arising from this, and the artistic and discursive strategies used by these auteurs, from avoidance of taboos, to Aesopian, highly encoded texts, to overt confrontation. It considers recent films by Boris Khlebnikov, Andrei Zviagintsev, Iurii Bykov, and others, engaging theories of Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, and Jose Munoz, in terms of hegemonic and counter-discourses.