Semen Zakruzhnyy

Exclusive interview about the Malfa label scandal, forgiveness and hatred of artists, bad Dorn music and talented Billy Elish, future rap artists and the dream to build Madame Tussauds in Bali.

This is ‘a road movie’ encapsulated in the Moscow metro system and filmed over the course of one year: a documentary film that observes cultural and social issues in modern Russia.

Dina is a young Russian filmmaker working on a film about Stalinist repressions and the massive intergenerational trauma they caused that continues to resonate in modern-day Russia. Together with her friend Johan, a German sound designer whose grandfather went missing in the USSR during the Second World War, she embarks on a journey to the former Soviet labour camps. Almost deserted, the abandoned lands of Gulag still bear traces of those who perished there. Although this trip becomes somewhat therapeutic for the two of them, it also puts their relationship to the test.

The dreamer Philip is full of wild and utopian ideas. But the pregnancy of his girlfriend Marina forces him to "grow up" dramatically: to find a stupid job, to give up ridiculous fantasies. However, in this form, he is unloved and no one needs. As a result, difficult childbirth makes it clear: one cannot do without his imagination.