SYNOPSIS
A woman lives alone on the outskirts of a village in Russia. One day she receives a parcel she sent to her incarcerated husband, marked 'return to sender'. Shocked and confused, the woman has no choice but to travel to the prison in a remote region of the country in search of an explanation. So begins the story of a battle against this impenetrable fortress, the prison where the forces of social evil are constantly at work. Braving violence and humiliation, in the face of all opposition, our protagonist embarks on a blind quest for justice.
CAST & CREW
Sergei Loznitsa
Director
Producer(s)
Marianne Slot
Script
Sergei Loznitsa
Director of Photography
Oleg Mutu
Production designer
Juris Žukovskis, Kirill Shuvalov
Sound
Vladimir Golovnitski
Edit
Danielius Kokanauskis
Cast
Vasilina Makovtseva, Marina Kleshcheva, Lia Akhedzhakova, Valeriu Andriuta, Boris Kamorzin, Sergei Kolesov.
Production company(ies)
Slot Machine Arte France Cinéma Graniet Film BV Looks Film & TV Produktionen Solar Media Entertainment Studio Uljana Kim Wild at Art
Sergei Loznitsa
Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa graduated from Kiev Polytechnic in 1987 with a degree in Applied Mathematics. From 1987 to 1991, he worked both as a scientist at the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics, specializing in artificial intelligence research, and as a translator from Japanese. In 1997, Loznitsa graduated from the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, where he studied feature filmmaking. Sergei Loznitsa has directed 16 documentary films since 1996 and has received numerous international awards, including festival prizes in Karlovy Vary, Leipzig, Oberhausen, Krakow, Paris, Madrid, Toronto, Jerusalem and St. Petersburg, as well as the Russian National Film awards Nika and Laurel. Loznitsa’s feature debut My Joy (2010) premiered in competition at the Cannes IFF, and was followed by In the Fog, which also premiered in competition at the Cannes IFF in 2012, where it was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize. Sergei Loznitsa launched a film production and distribution company Atoms & Void in 2013 and continues to work in both documentary and feature genres. His feature-length documentary Maidan, dedicated to the revolution in Ukraine, premiered at the Cannes IFF in 2014. Loznitsa’s most recent documentary Austerlitz (2016) is a study of the memorial sites open to the public on the locations of former German concentration camps.
Filmography
Today We Are Going to Build a House (1996, doc.), Life, Autumn (1998, doc.), The Train Stop (2000, doc.), Settlement (2001, doc.), Portrait (2002, doc.), Landscape (2003, doc.), Factory (2004, doc.), Blockade (2005, doc.), Artel (2006, doc.), Revue (2008, doc.), Northern Light (2008, doc.), My Joy (2010), In the Fog (2012), O Milagre de Santo António (2012, doc), Letter (2013, doc.), Reflections/Bridges of Sarajevo (2014, doc.), Maidan (2014, doc.), The Old Jewish Cemetery (2014, doc), The Event (2015, doc.), Austerlitz (2016, doc.), A Gentle Creature (2016).
