Acting
Pale, thin, cold-sweating Pik (Khugaev) teaches literature at the local university to students so indifferent they play cards and take phone calls while he lectures. "The hell with you,” he says, walking out mid-class. It’s unclear just why Pik seems so sickly, though by midpoint we realize he’s a heroin addict in withdrawal. Broke, alienated, shunned by his dealer, he searches for a fix or any other salvation, sharing his bleak thoughts in voiceover. Attractive lensing and spare piano/ambient sound score abet the feature’s melancholy, meditative aura.
When her father dies, Sandro decides to leave her family and home forever.
A growing up drama based on the stories of Fazil Iskander. The film is set in Abkhazia at the end of the Stalin era, in the late 40s - early 50s of the 20th century. 13-year-old Chik, a mischievous and contemplative person, lives the usual life of a Soviet schoolboy in the sunny town of Mukhus on the seashore. The sudden arrest of his father makes Chika more acutely experiencing his growing up, but cannot change his cheerful character and kind heart. A heightened sense of justice becomes the source of his both dangerous and comic adventures.
Sandro goes back to her native Ossetia for the funeral of her father and is immediately immersed in the chaos of the ceremony. When she sets foot on the fatherland again, she feels more alienation than a sense of homecoming. She and her brother Geor can feel the crushing weight of an unvoiced truth: Sandro wants to leave forever.
Stories about extraordinary people from North Ossetia with different professions, views and culture, but they definitely agree on one thing - in the boundless love for the place where they grew up and live.
