Elena Stejko

뉴질랜드에서 매년 개최되는 가면무도회에는 좀비, 마술사, 뱀파이어, 늑대인간 등 초대받은 자들만 참석할 수 있다. 다큐멘터리 촬영팀은 취재를 위해 뱀파이어들이 사는 집에 몇 달 동안 체류한다. 단, 자신들을 물지 않겠다는 약속을 받고 목에는 십자가를 건 채로. 무서울 것 같다고? 무도회에서 돋보이기 위해 서로 경쟁하고, 인간들이 자신을 무서워한다고 투덜대는 건 그들도 마찬가지다.

Misha (Stephen Papps), a once celebrated filmmaker who has fallen on hard times, resolves to leave his homeland in search of a film-friendly country where he can pursue his career. With his wife Nadia (Elena Stejko) in tow he sets sail from Russia in a tiny lifeboat, drifting cross the Pacific to finally arrive in New Zealand. Before long Misha realises that New Zealand is no more receptive to his ideas and aesthetic than Russia. Yet he perseveres with his experimental film, ignoring his wife’s pleas to find work. Misha increasingly withdraws into himself, and his relationship with Nadia collapses. Alone, his obsessions take hold and he steadily descends into madness. Only a chance encounter with a young Polynesian woman saves him from the ultimate act of self-destruction. His friendship with Roseanna (Stephanie Tauevihi) inspires a re-awakening, as he begins to reconnect with the world around him.

There is a story of a grand love torn apart by the Russo-Japanese War. It is an incomparable love story, crossing the borders of Russia and Japan and surmounting fifty years time. The true story of one woman who continued to wait because she loved, and one woman who said farewell because she loved. And a man who, bolstered by the love of these two women, struggled through the most extreme of circumstances and survived.