Maxim Yakubson

The poet Roald Mandelstam lived in postwar Leningrad. He was seriously ill from childhood, rarely left his house, and knew his life would be short. His visitors included the composer Isaac Schwartz and a painters that would come to be known as the "Arafiev circle," a group of independent artists working outside of official oversight. After 50 years, a fresco was discovered under the wallpaper in his communal apartment...

The documentary tells about the feat of Leningrad residents, the work of architects and mountaineers, the masking of the city and the preservation of monuments. Thanks to the unique chronicle, drawings and photographs, eyewitness accounts and analysis of historians, fragments and motives of the play " Hecatomb. Siege diary " the film rediscovers the events of the terrible and Holy days of the siege of Leningrad.

In St. Petersburg, in a house near the Neva, a father and son live. The father does not let go of the video camera. With her help, he keeps his "diaries", taking pictures at home and away, on the streets of the city and while traveling. Among the protagonists of his film are random passers-by, lonely old people, St. Petersburg bohemia, young people, friends and acquaintances of his son, former prisoners of the Mordovian camps. One day, not finding answers to important questions, the father decides to go to Jerusalem. For some time he and his son travel together, then part. In the life of the father, meanwhile, a serious change is coming.

A documentary about people whom the state, the guardianship authorities and the closest relatives recognized as incompetent, perhaps because they are all pupils of the PNI. Our heroes live in a separate house of accompanied residence in the village of Razdolye, where they earn money themselves, partially supporting themselves as far as they can. Famous people often come to this house. The first episode of this series tells about the arrival of the writer Yevgeny Vodolazkin.

Alexander Traugot is an outstanding St. Petersburg artist, heir to the dynasty of painters "G.A.V. Traugot", a porcelain maker and illustrator of books by Andersen, Nabokov, Bulgakov and Pushkin. He met the war as a 10-year-old child and lived with his mother and father in Leningrad throughout the blockade. The film recreates the atmosphere of the inner circle of the Traugot family.

Dina Loskutova, a person with severe disability, moves from a psycho-neurological boarding school to the House in the wild, where she can live with other people with disabilities and developmental disorders, in the village of Razdolye among ordinary people. How does their life, about the joys and trials of the first years of free life, this film tells.

The film "Names" is a free letter composed during the filming, made on the VGIK-ovskaya Konvas film camera.