2021 | Fiction | 17 min. | Russia
A volunteer soldier from Moscow comes face to face with the enemy – a badly wounded female sniper. He must decide whether to kill her and avenge his fallen comrades, or save her and betray them. If he doesn’t make the choice, others will make it for him.
Directors Statement
Skazka’s story is about this simple truth: in any conflict (whether between states, groups of people, friends or spouses), there is never a point of no return. It is always possible to pause, take a look around, and say “I’m sorry”. The important thing is to take action the moment your heart bids you to do so – just like fairy tale heroes do – without looking back and without hesitation. If you feel it needs doing, do it. That is the only way to save the princess, save the world or, at least, save yourself. I believe that the growth of intolerance is the modern world’s main problem. I spent half my life working as a dispute resolution lawyer and the root cause of almost all the disputes I dealt with was intolerance. Filming required a fairy tale-like old cottage standing alone in a large field. After failing to find anything suitable around Moscow, we had resolved to construct the set ourselves until we decided to visit the Red Ploughman farmstead in Voronezh Oblast where we found exactly what we needed. I got a lot of criticism for the decision to film 800 km away from Moscow, since it would involve significant expenses, risks and problems, all of which turned out to be true: the lead got sick the day before shooting started; on the first day of filming, the strength of an explosion was miscalculated, which ended up destroying our camera; sunshine had been forecast for the last day but, instead, that day began with heavy rain. However, every problem was miraculously resolved. We found Mikhail Troynik to replace the lead, we managed to persuade the camera rental company to deliver a new camera, and the sun finally came out. That sunshine was the sign that everything was going to be all right!
Director: Maxim Kulkov
Producer: Svetlana Kabanova
Сast: Michael Troynik, Anastasia Popova and Petr Logachev
