Going on a business trip, the hero of the film suddenly finds himself in a fantastic city. It is very similar to our world, only the hidden absurdity of everyday life here has become apparent.
Direction
Shakhnazarov's precise nightmare logic.
Production
Crumbling Soviet architecture as character.
Acting
Filatov's escalating panic beneath dead calm.
Director
Karen Shakhnazarov
Leonid Filatov
Алексей Михайлович Варакин
Oleg Basilashvili
Василий Николаевич Чугунов, председатель писательской организации
Vladimir Menshov
Николай Иванович Смородинов, прокурор города
Armen Dzhigarkhanyan
Пал Палыч, директор завода
Aleksei Zharkov
следователь
Pyotr Shcherbakov
Степан Филиппович Иванов, председатель горисполкома
Evgeniy Evstigneev
директор музея
Yuriy Sherstnyov
Курдюмов, официант ресторана
Elena Arzhanik
Нина, секретарша Пал Палыча
Tatyana Khvostikova
Анна
Aleksandr Bespalyy
электрик, хозяин дома
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot during perestroika, the film captures a system literally eating itself—bureaucracy as horror before the USSR collapsed.
The city 'Zerograd' shares its name with the mathematical concept of zero, suggesting a null state where identity and progress cancel out.
SU
