Assa

Assa (1987), directed by Sergei Solovyov, is a Soviet cult drama you can watch online on iFILM. Shot during the last years of the USSR, it became one of the defining films of the glasnost era — a melodrama wired to the underground music scene.

Alika lives as a kept woman under Krymov, a cold-eyed criminal boss played by Stanislav Govorukhin. Then she meets Bananan, an eccentric young musician played by Sergei Bugaev, whose world runs on broken guitars and street poetry rather than money or power. What starts as a side affair turns into something neither of them can walk away from.

Director Solovyov embedded a live Viktor Tsoi concert into the film's finale — a moment that belongs as much to Soviet rock history as to cinema. For Russian audiences who lived through that period, it plays like a time capsule. Stream Assa (1987) online on iFILM.