2006
Drama

Director
Aleksei Popogrebsky

Starring
Sergei Puskepalis, Leonid Bronevoy, Svetlana Kamynina, Dinara Kutuyeva, Ivan Osipov, Malkhaz Zhvaniya, Ivan Shvedoff

Duration
110 minutes

Awards
European Jury Prize, Best Film
(2008 Angers European Film Festival)

Jean Carment Award, Best Actor
(2008 Angers European Film Festival)

FIPRESCI Prize,
(2007 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)

Best Actor, Sergei Puskepalis
(2007 Karlovy Vary International Festival)

Award of Ecumenical Jury
(2007 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)

Grand-Prix, Best Film
(2007 Sochi Open Film Festival)

Best Director, Alexei Popogrebsky
(2007 Sochi Open Film Festival)

Best Actor, Sergei Puskepalis
(2007 Sochi Open Film Festival)

At the centre and in every scene of Simple Things is Sergei Maslov, an anaesthetist suffering from a sense of failure only aggravated by his cramped St. Petersburg apartment and financial troubles.

Marvellously played by theatre director Sergei Puskepalis in his first film role, Maslov is emotionally detached but surrounded by people with whom he must interact on a daily basis. We meet him just as his attempts at an affair with a receptionist at his clinic crumble - at the same time that his teenage daughter runs away with her boyfriend and his wife announces that she's unexpectedly pregnant.

However, a side gig for extra cash, giving an acerbic old actor injections for his pain, opens the way to a fragile but potentially life-changing friendship.  Popogrebsky’s superb new film is a work of imagination, subtlety, humour, maturity, and invention with superb performances on every level.

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