

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
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.