1.  Omg.  I hadn't realized he'd died.  He was really very talented.  

2.  I agree.  It is one of the reasons I chose to include You I love.  Not because it is nec. remarkable as a story or work of art, but because of its social significance.  Both Putin and Medvedev have repeatedly talked about needing to improve ethnic relations and tackle the problem of hate crimes, but yes, at the very same time they not only say nothing about the bigotry of the Orthodox Church and groups like "Nashi", they're quite closely aligned with them, if not officially.  Sigh.  But I do have hope.  All of these things are rooted in ignorance and insecurity.  We're talking about a society that was very insulated in the past, and has experienced any number of upheavals over the past few decades - so the dynamics that have created the current atmosphere of intolerance are not perplexing.  However, as there is more and more interaction with the rest of the world and more opportunity and stability domestically, I don't see how things can't improve, absent another national crisis.

I am still waiting for first-class Russian films to take up other longstanding virulent issues of Russian society like anti-Semitism and racism in a way that's convincing and moving.

Claims of Russian anti-Semitism are very much overblown, with usual line of supporting arguments including pogroms (a century old), Stalin's post-WWII anti-Semitic purges when he was clearly running out of enemies of the people (50+ years old), quotas for some (mostly Moscow and St. Petersburg) higher education establishment (30 years old), and the fate of a triple of oligarchs - Gusinsky, Berezovsky, and Khodorkovsky.

Putting aside ridiculousness of the first set of arguments, only the oligarch story holds some water - until, that is, you recall that 6 out of "7 bankers" manipulating Russian government in mid-90es happened to be described as Jews (Berezovsky, actually, converted to Orthodox Christianity, and didn't try to use his ethnicity in the way some others did). If anti-oligarch pressure is taken to be more political than ethnic, there's nothing left of "evil Russians hate Jews" story.

Anti-Caucasian and anti-Central Asian racism is an entirely different and all too real story.

As regards "moving" - try watching 2004 movie called "Papa". Get some tissues ready.