Anna Ganshina

Story of Lendoc (Leningrad Documentary Films Studio). Among the heroes of the film are not only famous film directors who shot films at the studio in different years, but also employees of other professions, like cinematographers, writers, editors, producers, sound designers…

Tragic circumstances brought the Spirit, a former "Afghan", to a prison cell, where he found himself alone with the German baron Maximilian von Stoltz. The spirit once lived by the sea, in a house where there were a woman and a child. Served as a paratrooper in Afghanistan. Unknown paths led him into the criminal world, he has 11 murders to his name, the prospect of capital punishment.

When we close our eyes we see the black colour. By this, we mean that we see “nothing”. How long can one survive in the darkness? A couple of moments? A couple of hours? A couple of days? Some of us spend their whole life in it. Their eyes can be closed, but is their darkness as dark as we think?

At different times, people look at the camera in different ways: at the beginning of the 20th century not the way they did in the 1920s, in the 1940s differently than now... The cinematic look, developing, begins to influence the human perception of all reality. A certain character, on whose behalf the narration is being conducted, searches in the film archive for frames in which people look at the camera, and carefully examines them, trying to discover the hidden meaning of these gazes from the past.

Story of Lendoc (Leningrad Documentary Films Studio). Among the heroes of the film are not only famous film directors who shot films at the studio in different years, but also employees of other professions, like cinematographers, writers, editors, producers, sound designers…

Tragic circumstances brought the Spirit, a former "Afghan", to a prison cell, where he found himself alone with the German baron Maximilian von Stoltz. The spirit once lived by the sea, in a house where there were a woman and a child. Served as a paratrooper in Afghanistan. Unknown paths led him into the criminal world, he has 11 murders to his name, the prospect of capital punishment.

When we close our eyes we see the black colour. By this, we mean that we see “nothing”. How long can one survive in the darkness? A couple of moments? A couple of hours? A couple of days? Some of us spend their whole life in it. Their eyes can be closed, but is their darkness as dark as we think?

At different times, people look at the camera in different ways: at the beginning of the 20th century not the way they did in the 1920s, in the 1940s differently than now... The cinematic look, developing, begins to influence the human perception of all reality. A certain character, on whose behalf the narration is being conducted, searches in the film archive for frames in which people look at the camera, and carefully examines them, trying to discover the hidden meaning of these gazes from the past.