Winner, Audience Choice Award, Vladivostok International Film Festival
At the beginning of Mikhail Segal’s film, an author approaches a publishing house with a selection of stories and is told there is no market for them. However, as various people open the book, they each find themselves drawn into an imaginary reality.
The first story tells of a wedding organiser who can fix anything, including the future, while the second traces a course from petty bribery to political duplicity. In the third, the librarian of the Pushkin Library assists the police with her psychic powers ‘just like on television’, while in the fourth, a middle-aged man’s encounters with a sexually voracious young woman are interspersed with a discussion on the history of the Soviet Union. She loves Animal Planet but knows very little about Trotsky.
Segal’s elliptical satire is achieved with precision and style – a nice counterbalance to the dark masterpieces of his contemporaries.
Peter Hames, BFI London Film Festival
