Koktebel

Colour, 35 mm
Russia, 2003, 100 min
Section: East of the West

Synopsis

He built planes in Moscow, then his wife died, he began drinking, he lost his apartment, and his son started to wander. So he decided to set out on a journey across Russia to Koktebel in Crimea, to his sister Marina’s. The penniless father and son, knapsacks on their backs, head south by train and on foot. They look for odd jobs on the way, and soon enough an eccentric man hires them to fix his roof. One evening the father doesn’t resist the man’s persistent offers, and one vodka follows another. The drunken homeowner accuses the father of stealing money and in a deranged moment, he shoots him. The man and son escape into the woods and in a nearby village a lonely healer named Xenia takes them in. The man becomes closer to her but the boy, not content to just hang around, escapes. An affable driver takes him all the way to Crimea. It’s still summer in Koktebel but the boy can’t find his aunt. The boy spends the night on the shore of the sea he longed to visit, and in the morning his father is sitting on the pier beside  helpless child.... This story of fatherly love and children’s egoism incorporates the theme of unwitting good and evil in the people the duo meet on their pilgrimage to save themselves. All this takes place against a backdrop of nature and small pockets of life in a immense country whose people are trying to cope with difficult lives and fulfil their dreams of happiness.

About the director

Boris Khlebnikov (b. 1972) graduated in film theory from the Russian Film Institute. He and Alexei Popogrebsky shot the short documentary Mimochod (1997), then he independently directed the short drama Tricky Frog (2000).

Alexei Popogrebsky (b. 1972) graduated in psychology from Moscow State University. He and Boris Khlebnikov filmed the short documentary Mimokhod (1997). Koktebel is both directors’ feature debut.