Editor 's note : The staff at CNN.com has recently been intrigued by the journalism of VICE , an independent media company and Web site based in Brooklyn , New York . VBS.TV is the broadband television network of VICE . The reports , which are produced solely by VICE , reflect a transparent approach to journalism , where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process . We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers . Brooklyn , New York ( VBS.TV ) -- In this installment of the Vice Guide to Film , VBS co-founder Shane Smith travels to Russia to meet the pioneers of one of the most peculiar experimental film movements in history : Parallel Cinema . The genre marries Soviet avant-garde agitprop filmmaking ( black and white , silent , odd angles , extreme closeups , rapid fire editing of good Soviets at work ) with something called `` Necro-realism , '' a movement spearheaded by filmmaker Yvegny Yufit and consisting of very weird gay male zombie flicks that feature fat bald men having sex and eating each other 's brains . It was meant to be a comment on the impending fall of the Soviet system and the decadence of the apparatchiks in charge . It grew to become much more . While Russia is known for its experimental works of the 1920s -- auteurs like Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein spring to mind -- this freedom of expression ended when Stalin took power . For 60 years , Russian film was dominated by the drab , state-approved imagery of Socialist realism . This genre was defined by stark scenes of the proletariat soldiering and toiling diligently over the land . Making movies outside this milieu meant that the film-lovers , artists , actors and rock musicians who collaborated to create it were risking life and limb at the hands of the KGB . But when the Soviet Union collapsed , the threat of its primary intelligence agency diminished and Russian filmmakers began to unleash six decades of pent-up creative energy . The films that emerged were an insane mish-mash of booze , violence , surrealism and insanity . Parallel Cinema was born . Watch the rest of Russian Parallel Cinema at VBS.TV . For this episode , Shane journeys to Moscow and St. Petersburg to meet several of the surviving founders of Parallel Cinema and Necro-realism , many of whom are today extremely successful commercial producers and directors . In fact , a few of them now run some of the country 's key networks and continue to make films . Shane manages to uncover this fascinating underground art community and finds that to this day the Parallel Cinema movement thrives . The devoted still have weekly Parallel screenings and events , and even put out a monthly film publication . Still , as he immerses himself in this unique film tradition , it becomes clear that , given Russian 's present volatility , it may not exist much longer .
Film journalist and pioneers of ` ` most peculiar '' experimental film movement . Film era of freedom that ended with collapse of Soviet Union . Unique film tradition will not last much longer given Russia 's present volatility .