The Beginning (2016)

Two young directors adapted the short stories of two Russian authors whose works had been banned for decades, and so their film ended up in the censor’s vault as well – for twenty years. Both tales look back to the post-revolutionary era: 'Angel' speaks tragically of the brutality and destruction of the time, and 'The Homeland of Electricity' captures its haunting grotesquery.

A new modern communist youth shoe store The shoe house is opening in a city. School graduates headed by Tamara Berezina are sent there on a business trip for work. Now all kind of problems and defects of modern services sector are in front of them. And Tamara with her team just cant put up with one of these defects and start the fight. The fact is that the factory situated in the city floods their store with inferior shoes, in chase of going over the quota. With help of mass media in the face of young journalist, fellows are trying to change the existing state of things.

A talented girl from the provincial Russian town Pasha Stroganova dreams of becoming an actress. She plays the role of Baba Yaga in the amateur theatre — and does it so organically that the visiting filmmaker offers her the most difficult role in the historical drama about Joan of Arc. She was given not only great acting talent, but the talent of deep, selfless love. A dream comes true: she is invited to the main role, and she begins a completely different life, full of real creative torment, insights and true happiness.

But the lives of the Kikoriki are suddenly turned upside-down when they stumble on a strange device they had only heard about - a TV.

The year 1829. Nikolay Gogol, a young Third Section clerk, is desperate: his own books seem shallow and mediocre, so he keeps buying entire print runs just to burn them all. He is suffering from violent epileptic seizures and struggles to keep on working. Investigator Yakov Guro accidentally witnesses one such fit and realizes that Gogol's visions contain clues that could help solve actual crimes. Together, Gogol and Guro take on a particularly weird and baffling case that brings them to a small village of Dikanka, where everyone has a huge secret to hide.