Andrey Rodionov

A day in the life of a comic book artist and his family in post-Soviet Russia. While suffering from the flu, Petrov is carried by his friend Igor on a long walk, drifting in and out of fantasy and reality.

Accidentally, Alyona finds herself alone in her lover's country-house on Christmas Eve. All she can see from the window is a snow-covered desert, and a cat is the only living creature who is near. The heating is turned off, her mobile phone battery is low. Alyona tries to get out of the country-house, but the more external circumstances she overcomes the deeper she sinks into her inner hell. At the end of the day her desire to escape suddenly evolves into desire to die. There are three layers in the film: physical, symbolical and metaphysical. All Alyona's activity is a surface that hides her struggle with her inner demons, her existential solitude and her inability to cope with it. Trying to escape the swamp of unsolved issues Alyona sinks only deeper and deeper to reach the bottom, then push off and start her way to inner resurrection. The only thing we are never given enough is love. The only thing we never give enough is love.

All day long the TV shows an ice-hole. Ice-holes are the theme of the day, a winter tradition that unites believers and sportsmen, stars and walruses, the president and the unemployed. In the centre of the news reports are the topics of Baptism, fishing and the criminal chronicle. The president and a pike, the artist and the crit- ics, the oligarch and the law enforcement team – they all meet at an ice- hole in search of solutions for their problems. The jobless Muscovite, with bad habits, dives down an ice-hole for a wife, just like Sadko. The fairy- tale plots intertwine with documentary context, and it is no longer clear where reality ends. Remember Nietzsche: if you long gaze into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you.

All day long the TV shows an ice-hole. Ice-holes are the theme of the day, a winter tradition that unites believers and sportsmen, stars and walruses, the president and the unemployed. In the centre of the news reports are the topics of Baptism, fishing and the criminal chronicle. The president and a pike, the artist and the crit- ics, the oligarch and the law enforcement team – they all meet at an ice- hole in search of solutions for their problems. The jobless Muscovite, with bad habits, dives down an ice-hole for a wife, just like Sadko. The fairy- tale plots intertwine with documentary context, and it is no longer clear where reality ends. Remember Nietzsche: if you long gaze into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you.

Before leaving Russia and moving to Western Europe, famous opera singer Lyuba travels to her hometown to say goodbye and show her teenage son around. But Andrey, Lyuba’s son, disappears and she must stay in the place she hates the most to search for him. A piercing exploration of identity and transformation, against the backdrop of a Russian hinterland, surrounded by Orthodox churches and snow.