A Russian baptism of fire

co-stars

IS Nikita Mikhalkov, whose Oscar-winning Burnt by the Sun is one of

the festival's hits, really the tyrant he gave every indication of being

when I met him a last year in Cannes? Ingeborga Dapkunaite's face

crinkled with glee. Her eyes spoke volumes. Discretion, however,

prevailed. She plays his wife, Marussya, in the film and her performance

ought to launch her on to the international film scene.

''He likes it his way and needs to be in complete control,'' she said

in impeccable English. ''He wrote it, he directed it, he starred in it

and if he decides he is not shooting this scene, that is it. It may take

five days to work things out, but we are going to sit down and work it

out. He raised the money and he has the luxury of stopping and finding

out how to do the scene really well.''

A Lithuanian, trained in Vilnius, where she worked in the theatre, she

has made several Russian films. Three years ago John Malkovich was

looking for an Eastern European actress for a play he was doing, and she

was one of four from Russia who auditioned.

She ended up appearing at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, and on

Shaftesbury Avenue. She also married the play's director, Simon Stokes,

and now lives in London. She spent four months making Burnt by the Sun

two years ago and, although it looks as if it was made in high summer,

she ended up working in freezing temperatures with snow on the ground

because they had started filming in August when the corn was ripe, but

had gone over time.

Filming in the West was very different from in Russia, she said. It

was luxury compared to what she had been used to. Actors did not have

caravans to rest in and were lucky to get a chair. For the first month

on Burnt by the Sun they had a caravan, but caravans are scarce in

Russia, Police Academy was filming, and it was taken away.

Acting with Malkovich seems to have been, if anything, more terrifying

than acting with Mikhalkov. ''John is an unpredicable actor and one has

always to be on one's toes,'' she said. ''You wonder -- what is he going

to do now? -- every single show. Is he going to throw something at me?

Is he going to jump on me. Yes he is. Now! But I loved it.''

She wants to work again in the theatre in Britain, has just finished a

small role in the Tom Cruise film, Mission Impossible for Brian de

Palma, and is about to start a Sky TV movie with Rob Lowe playing a girl

who is good, then not so good. She has also appeared with Malkovich at

Steppenwolf in Libra, a play he wrote about Lee Harvey Oswald.

She was Marina Oswald and a Texas stripper. She grinned engagingly at

the very idea. ''I had a white wig with black roots and a cowgirl hat,''

she said.

THE body count is high, the stunts are spectacular, the energy is

formidable, but the wit which made Robert Rodriguez's

no-budget-to-speak-of-movie, El Mariachi, at Edinburgh in 1993, is

missing from his big bucks Columbia-financed sequel, Desperado. The

compensating factor is Antonio Banderas now plays the guitar player.

Drool time, girls and boys. On release soon, so not long to wait.

This year's no-budget triumph is Mute Witness, a horror film written

and directed by Anthony Waller which combines genuine thrills with some

wildly over-the-top comedy. Shot in Russia, it is about a trio of

Americans making a horror movie in a ramshackle studio.

Prop girl Billy (Marina Sudina), a deaf mute, kept late at work

discovers that the Russian crew is making a snuff movie on the side. Cue

for frightened lady routine. It is when the director and his girlfriend

finally realise something is wrong and the bad guys set about trying to

silence everyone that the jokes start to flow. Waller never puts a foot

wrong. A treat by any standards.

Among the short films, BBC Scotland's Nightlife directed by Patrick

Harkins stands out. Katrin Cartlidge plays an agoraphobic whose flat

overlooks Kelvingrove Park, who spend the time, Jimmy Stewart fashion,

viewing the world through her camera lens.

One night she snaps a man being abducted and tells the police, who

consider her a nutcase. Can she save him? Dare she leave the flat? The

life of the park after dark is amusingly portrayed, although I have my

doubts about the accent sported by Jane Horrocks as the comic relief.

She plays a university yuppie abandoned by her kilted friend who is too

drunk to achieve his ambition of doing it it al fresco, leaving her to

make friends with a couple of men up to no good in the bushes. There is

a neat final twist which, for once, one does not see coming a mile off.

Cartlidge also stars in Three Steps to Heaven, a curate's egg directed

by Constantine Giannaris, as a woman whose toy-boy lover has died in

mysterious circumstances. She sets out to track the three dissolute

people who were with him, a wide boy, a homosexual MP and a chat-show

host. Giannaris shows promise, but more work should have been done on

the script.

* Desperado -- tomorrow, 9.30pm Cameo 3; Mute Witness -- tomorrow

11.30pm, Cameo 1; Three Steps to Heaven and Nightlife -- today 4pm Cameo

1.