East of the West - Competition 2011 / Serdca bumerang / Russia 2011
Twenty-three-year-old Kostya works for the Moscow subway as a train driver’s assistant. He goes for a check-up at the doctor’s and is told he has a serious heart condition. Filmed with an emphasis on introspection, this is an intimate portrait of a man who has yet to define his life values.
Twenty-three-year-old Kostya works for the subway as a train driver’s assistant. One day he goes for a check-up, and the doctor diagnoses a serious heart condition and says that he has to radically change his lifestyle and his job. But Kostya decides not to tell anyone about his illness. Deep inside, however, he re-examines the life he has led until now, and realises that his mother is his only source of stability. He doesn’t really know how to relate to other people, nor does he know where his relationship with his girlfriend is going. The film is played out during the winter months, set in the suburbs of the Russian capital and within the city’s subway system. Cameraman Shandor Berkeshi (Koktebel, Free Floating) skillfully puts its fascinating allure to use in his black-and-white compositions. Hypnotic shots of the trains rumbling through the tunnels seem to reflect the mental state of a hero forced by necessity to take his life into his own hands.
97 min / Black & white, HD CAM
International premiere
Director Nikolay Khomeriki
/ Screenplay Nikolay Khomeriki, Alexander Rodionov
/ Dir. of Photography Shandor Berkeshi
/ Editor Ivan Lebedev
/ Producer Svetlana Kumchaeva
/ Production Valday
/ Cast Alexander Yatsenko, Claudia Korshunova, Natalia Batrak, Alexander Ilyin
/ Contact Valday
Nikolay Khomeriki (b. 1975, Moscow) first graduated from the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors (2000) and then studied film direction at La Fémis film school in Paris (2005), where he was taught by Eric Rohmer. He assisted Philippe Garrel on the set of Regular Lovers (Les amants réguliers, 2005). After the shorts Tempest (Tempête, 2004) and À deux (Vdvoyom, 2005), he made the fantasy drama 977 (2006). He chose quite a different genre for his Tale in the Darkness (Skazka pro tyemnotu, 2009), an intimate portrait of a lonely girl who becomes too involved in her work helping troubled youngsters. The last two films mentioned screened in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes.
Valday
Leskov st, 34-9, 127650, Moscow
Russia
Phone: +7 495 767 495 2
E-mail: [email protected]
Svetlana Kuchmaeva
Producer
Alexander Yatsenko
Actor
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