2024 | Fiction | 24 min. | Russia
A teacher at a Moscow school named Viktor decides to travel to his hometown to sell an apartment that he and his sister inherited. However, his sister is unaware of his plan, so he acts secretly. His pregnant wife, living in a renovated apartment, and his greedy mother-in-law eagerly await his return with the money. But in his hometown, everyone believes that life in Moscow hasn’t changed him at all...
Directors Statement
This film was born in agony, delivered through a metaphorical C-section, painfully, and with a very small budget. Initially, everything was planned on a mere 50,000 rubles, but the budget kept growing and growing as time went on. Our "child" grew and matured. Everything seemed to be against us: retrograde Mars during filming, criminals in the provincial town who attacked the main actor with a knife (fortunately, the film's cameraman saved him just in time), and the lack of support from those close to me, especially my ex-husband. He developed wild fantasies that we weren’t making a film but hosting orgies—otherwise, why would I be away for 12 hours at a time? Then there was defective footage, which forced us to cut huge scenes, as there was no way to reshoot them. Still, the film was created with the help of friends and with love. All the actors took the project seriously, and the entire creative team worked cohesively. However, the defective footage meant I had to piece together a new story, one that was entirely different from the original script. I needed time to come to terms with the fact that my project had become something else, something I hadn’t envisioned. I had to accept it with its own rules. Post-production was a long and grueling process, and nothing felt right until I removed color from the film. This film wanted to be black and white—so be it! A new vision emerged, and a new story was told.
Director: Maria Belova
Producer: Maria Levkovskaya
Сast: Vladimir Logvinov, Ksenia Nepotrebnaya, Olga Hohlova, Olga Kavalay-Asyonova, Ilya Lovkiy , Kirill Kaganovich, Anna Litkens , Maria Shumakova and Elvira Bolgova
