Vitaly Afanasiev

A poetic documentary about life in a war-torn Chechen village, with the cemetery as its symbolic focal point. The village lives and breathes in unison. The Chechen gravediggers are always busy. Death is an everyday visitor. It does not even matter that yet another war has ended. The people live stuck in a circle of vengeance. They also gather into circles to chant prayers to God. Only the cows are grazing calmly next to the cemetery and the children are happily going about their business. The Chechens' parting words to one another are, "May you come back free!"

The youngest son returns home to help his father and brothers meet the targets for a profitable order on cut wood. During his absence nothing has changed: the same back-breaking toil for the sake of a piece of bread, the same resistance from the neighbouring settlement, the same inability of the family members to express their love and understanding for their kin. And the river, which may rise at any time and wash away the parental home that stands on its banks.

The main character of the film is DJ Morze, a philologist by training, the creator and ideological inspirer of the OBERWAVE project - a community and a series of parties dedicated to sensual neo-decadent music and the aesthetics of a feast during the plague.

The film is dedicated to the life and creative journey of Professor Irina Evgenyevna Taimanova, a television and theater director, producer, journalist, writer, and Honored Artist of Russia. Her remarkable imagination, boundless creative energy, and a flair for bringing together other talented people have given rise to many notable projects across various fields of art. The film’s protagonist guides the audience through a chronicle of Leningrad/St. Petersburg’s cultural life.

The film is about a unique social experiment. Will the appearance of the city change if janitors, roofers and other housing office workers are introduced to art and sent to the Russian Museum for educational instruction? “Make it beautiful” records the progress of the experiment throughout the year.