Today’s twenty-something Russians are the first generation in the country’s post-communist history to have grown up free. Their twenties are the age of freedom, of fast-changing events and intense emotions. Perhaps only at this age they can live a whole life in one day. A young girl and her two accident companions walk halfway around St.-Petersburg; they flirt and tease each other, and for ninety minutes they act out a real-time romantic drama. This stroll is full of laughter and tears against a backdrop of the hustle and bustle of the streets.
Acting
Irina Pegova's mercurial shifts from giddy to gutted in seconds.
Cinematography
St. Petersburg becomes the fourth character — gorgeous, indifferent, alive.
Direction
Uchitel's real-time gamble pays off with unbearable immediacy.
Director
Alexei Uchitel
Irina Pegova
Olya
Pavel Barshak
Aleksey
Evgeny Tsyganov
Pyotr
Evgeniy Grishkovec
Seva
Karen Badalov
groom
Madlen Dzhabrailova
gypsy woman in a trolleybus
Andrey Kazakov
Aleksey Kolubkov
wedding party
Mikhail Krylov
police sergeant
Ekaterina Krupenina
correspondent in the helicopter
Natalya Kurdyubova
girl in the toilet
Kseniya Kutepova
Empress Elizabeth
Polina Kutepova
Empress Catherine
Kirill Pirogov
street musician
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during Russia's oil-boom early 2000s, it captures a generation drunk on new money and new possibilities, terrified of choosing wrong. The 'stroll' itself is a distinctly Petersburg tradition — aimless walking as existential statement.
Evgeniy Grishkovec, who plays Seva, was already a famous writer/performance artist; his improvised monologue about the 'theory of strolling' wasn't in the original script. Uchitel kept rolling.
RU
