

Soviet bureaucracy has never been this savage — or this weirdly compelling.
The new secretary of the NPP party committee is fighting against high results' progress in equipment operation.
Acting
Oleg Efremov's weathered face carries entire regimes.
Direction
Pchyolkin's theatrical staging of bureaucratic hell.

Director
Leonid Pchyolkin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during Brezhnev's stagnation era, this TV movie was state-funded critique of state failure — the Soviet system eating its own tail.
Pchyolkin was primarily a theater director; this explains the claustrophobic single-location intensity and dialogue-heavy staging.