Dmitry Kabakov

The film is about the long-term relationship between the director and the character of her first film, the French indie artist, musician and director Siegfried, known as Sig. The story is dedicated to the experience of growing up, emancipation and finding their own identity in life and in art. The film raises questions about the nature of the student-teacher relationship, which inevitably involves submission and conflict, and the nature of the director and hero relationship, which is based on love and a little manipulation.

War doesn’t start and end in battlefields; it originates and is buried in peaceful cities. This film delves into the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, not by focusing on violence, shelling, or the victims, but by reflecting on the military vehicles that either enter or have long been embedded in the lives and minds of people across various countries.

What binds a person to a certain place on Earth? What lets him say, “I'm from here, and this is my land?” What’s setting the boundaries of our existence? The film immerses us in the daily life of a village near Moscow, where local old-timers live side by side with immigrants from Tajikistan. How do the fences arise, then are destroyed and arise once again between cultures and people?

Every day, an old woman goes by train alone to the woods to collect wood. A minimal gesture, seemingly insignificant, becomes an extraordinary admission of Russian society in which archival images erupt telling a universal story.