A sketch on the life of the eminent Russian writer, prevented from realizing himself by the totalitarian regime and whose own stubbornness stopped him from selling out. Speaking with the same urgency about today as it does about the past, this artistically and emotionally compelling piece depicts an era brimming with the stymied lives of people who became dissidents or emigrated against their will.
An unacknowledged man of letters, who is to become – twenty years later and after his death – a cult Russian writer, wanders through Leningrad’s foggy streets. In the meantime, however, he makes the rounds to various magazine offices where the editors invariably refuse to publish his stories. Or he passionately engages in discussions at intellectual “salons” held at packed communal apartments. Or he goes in search of a doll to buy for his daughter – all this as he resists the urge to sell his soul to the infernal regime. With near tangible persuasiveness, German evokes an era that entered history with the telling name “the stagnation” and which inalterably affected his own parents’ lives. Employing a pressing universality, the director presents another portrayal of the tormenting expectations that mark a turning point in life. The characters’ gorgeous period attire contributed to the film winning a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at this year’s Berlinale for costume and production design.
Kamila Dolotina
126 min / Color, DCP
Director Alexey German Jr.
/ Screenplay Alexey German Jr., Yulia Tupikina
/ Dir. of Photography Łukasz Żal
/ Music Andrey Surotdinov
/ Editor Sergey Ivanov, Darya Gladysheva
/ Art Director Elene Okopnaya
/ Producer Andrey Savelyev, Artem Vasilyev, Konstantin Ernst
/ Production SAGa
/ Coproduction Metrafilms, Message Film
/ Cast Milan Marić, Danila Kozlovsky, Helena Sujecka, Artur Beschastny, Anton Shagin
/ Sales Alpha Violet
Alexey German Jr. (b. 1976, Leningrad, USSR). Selected filmography: The Last Train (2003), Garpastum (2005), Paper Soldier (2008), Under Electric Clouds (2015), Dovlatov (2018)
Alpha Violet
47 avenue de la République, 750 11, Paris
France
Phone: +33 629 835 108
E-mail: [email protected]
Jean-Babtiste Bailly-Maitre
Producer, Sales Agent
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