2006
Drama

Director
Igor Apasian

Starring
Andrei Novikov, Viktor Perevalov, Sergey Potapov, Larissa Guzeeva

Duration
125 minutes

Awards
Special Jury Prize (2007 Yerevan International Film Festival)

Grand Prix Nomination (2007 Tokyo International Film Festival)

23 year old art student Andrei is on the wrong side of the law, his teachers and his girlfriend. Not to mention a rival street gang who beat him up after they catch him spraying graffiti on their turf.

As punishment, his teachers send him to rural Russia, instead of the glamorous trip to Venice he had planned, to study ‘real life’ and landscapes.

The normally aloof Andrei is slowly drawn into the small time dramas of the locals when he is commissioned to paint a mural of the local councillors. He develops a touching friendship with a drunken old man, his son the septic service truck driver and other strange and forgotten people.

The theme of memory and cherishing lost loved ones blossoms through the mural, as it grows to include the men of the village who have died in war, from the great war to the recent Chechen conflict – soldiers of Andrei’s age who through their images, reveal to him a deeper meaning to life.

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