FROM RUSSIA . . . WITH ‘FLOWERS’

Chekhov brings out the best in Russian film makers: He’s great, timeless and politically safe , which allows for considerable freedom of expression.

The late Abram Room was one who gave his best: At 80, in 1972, he directed the exquisitely romantic “Belated Flowers” (from an early Chekhov novella), that reverberates with a passion expressed in images created by a film maker who began in the silent era. “Belated Flowers” screens tonight at 7:30 and 9:15 in the Fox International’s “Masterworks of Soviet Cinema” series (information at (213) 396-4215).

It’s a classic Chekhov situation, a lament for the passing of the old order and a protest against the vulgarity of the nouveau riche.

Renowned Chinese film director Xie Jin will appear at the Melnitz Theater, UCLA, for screenings at 7:30 p.m. Saturday of his films “The Legend of Tianyun Mountain” (1981) and “The Herdsman” (1982). The first deals with coming to terms with the past; the second concerns a reunion in Peking between a man and his father, who had fled to America on the eve of the 1949 revolution. These two films were not available for preview nor were the 2 p.m. Sunday offerings, “Youth” (1977) and “Ah, Cradle” (1980), but Sunday evening’s program was.

Both “Big Li, Young Li and Old Li” (1962) and “Woman Basketball Player No. 5” (from 7:30 p.m.) are ostensibly paeans to the virtues of sports but are actually considerably more. Both films tell their simple, even innocent stories with a visual sophistication that’s startling in its contrast to such material.

Michael Pattinson’s “Moving Out,” which launches five Wednesdays of Australian films at the Vista, is a thoroughly engaging small film about an Italian-born teen-ager (Vince Colosimo, a natural actor) who emigrated to Australia at such a young age that he feels thoroughly Australian and at increasing odds with his clannish family, which speaks only Italian at home. Co-billed is “Freedom,” Scott Hicks’ film about a 22-year-old loser (Jon Blake). The Vista begins a four-week Thursday series of Mizoguchi-Ozu double bills with Wim Wenders’ “Tokyo,” a study of Ozu (also screening on Friday), along with Ozu’s sublime final film, “An Autumn Afternoon.”

“The Eyes of Julia Deep” (1918) and “The Mystery of Rosie Taylor” (1918), the only two known extant films of the late silent star Mary Miles Minter, will screen Friday at 8 p.m. at the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1900 Pico Blvd. Gaylord Carter will provide organ accompaniment.