Yury Sokolov

The unique view on the well-known story of Christ's death and resurrection, which we see with the eyes of brigand Barabbas who got away from death on the cross.

Vita, an employee of a private spy agency, is handed a case of tapping into and listening to the mysterious life of a new "client". By day, her work on the case seems all the more routine; by night she's involved in a steamy and passionate affair. Sooner rather than later however, Vita realizes that the man with whom she is having an affair with, is the same man she's been spying on for the agency. From this point on nothing is what it seems, as Vita becomes entangled into a deadly game of cat and mouse.

The political drama is set in the Stalin's Soviet Union after the Second World War. A British archaeologist Andrei Miller is working in Iran. He is mistakenly kidnapped and arrested by the KGB. He is falsely accused of spying and wrongfully sentenced to a Gulag prison-camp in Siberia.

Ivan is old Russia: thick, dour, hard-working, often brutish; he misses Communism. He drives a taxi and one night meets Alexi, a new Russian, a musician, an alcoholic, irresponsible. Alexi stiffs Ivan for the fare, so Ivan tracks him down and a love-hate relationship ensues. When Alexi lets the bath water run over in Ivan's flat and Ivan must pay 500 rubles for repairs, he tries to force Alexi into day labor to repay him. It's hopeless. Then, suddenly, Alexi is discovered, goes on a jazz tour of America, becomes a celebrity, and returns in triumph. Ivan longs to renew the friendship, and it looks as if he may get what he wants.

A sequel to the 1991 feature Afganets, about a returning Soviet fighter from Afghanistan who had turned to crime.