Vlad Fishez

Koka

Somewhere on the coast of the Bering Sea, a father and son make a living fishing in a community that seems almost outside of time. Aliaksandr Tsymbaliuk’s camera takes us in close to the subjects, recording both the harshness of their condition and the rigour of education, softened by paternal love and the universal insouciance of childhood.

Queendom

In defiance of Russia’s anti-LGBTQ laws, a queer, 21-year-old artist risks her life performing in surreal costumes throughout Moscow. Jenna Marvin’s radical public performances blend artistry and activism in this SXSW documentary.

Dreams about Putin

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many Russians have started having dreams about their president and sharing them on social media. More than a thousand dreams about Putin have now been recorded and posted on public platforms. In Dreams About Putin, a selection of these dreams have been brought to life using Unreal Engine, a 3D graphics program for creating scenes for computer games. In this exciting experiment with form, the animations are complemented by rare archival footage of the Russian president. The dreams are related by a narrator, and their “translation” into 3D scenes is not literal; likewise, the archival footage has been lightly edited. The result is sometimes dryly comic, sometimes absurdist, sometimes disturbing, and sometimes even hopeful. A series of bizarre but therefore oddly familiar nightmares as a vision of Putin’s Russia.

Heel-and-toe

The police stop Anton Kuznetsov in the yard of his own house and here starts the journey of Antokha MC. One summer, one year or one friendship. Small stations from Vologda to Nizhny Novgorod, from a Russian EDM festival to an architecture exhibition in Kiev. Everything that made dozens, if not hundreds of thousands of people feel inspired with the art of this gawky, always smiling guy with a heavy backpack is not said out loud, but you can still feel it in each frame. Honesty, natural charisma, and kindness make Antokha MC not only the new hero of the music industry, but also a person, who is the main hero of this film.