East of the West - Competition 2005 / Gorod bez solnca / Russia 2005
Today’s St Petersburg. The talented actress-clown Ludmila has fallen prey to drugs, along with her bohemian friends who are completely absorbed in their decadent performances. Her dependency complicates her theatre engagements and, in particular, her relationship with the young engineer Yegor, who tries to steer her away from her dissolute lifestyle.
St Petersburg. A big city beautiful yet repugnant, energetic yet grown tired of the social fissures within it. The pervading existential instability is also projected into the story of the talented actress Ludmila. A drug habit has drawn her towards Alex who wants to make a name for himself as a decadent performer. Ludmila is desperate to get hold of money for drugs. She makes the acquaintance of Yegor, who falls in love with her. The theatre (she is performing in a Daniil Kharms slapstick comedy) means everything to her. She feels that Yegor could provide the strong support she needs, but she is greatly affected by a painful past and also lured by visions of the boundless freedom represented by Alex’s community. Yegor is only gradually able to orient himself in the labyrinth of Ludmila’s existence, yet he is determined to rescue her. But he has no idea about the power of drugs and into what maze of uncertainty and doubt love has led him....
101 min / Color, 35 mm
International premiere
Director Sergei Potemkin
/ Screenplay Igor Hertzev, Sergej Poťomkin/Sergei Potemkin
/ Dir. of Photography Sergej Jurižditskij/Sergei Yurizditsky
/ Music Sergej Šurakov/Sergei Schurakov
/ Editor Leda Semjonova/Leda Semyonova
/ Producer Vitalij Poťomkin/Vitali Potemkin
/ Production Kino Plus
/ Cast Julia Mavrina, Maxim Averin, Sergei Bezrukov, Semjon Furman/Semyon Furman, Nikolaj Trofimov/Nikolay Trofimov, Julia Kamanina
/ Contact Kino Plus
www: www.sunless-city.ru
Sergei Potemkin (b. 1978) has been working in his native St Petersburg with the makers of the TV programme “House of Film” (“Dom kino”) since 1997. He studied in the meantime at the State University of Film and Television. In the years 1997-99 he spent time studying with Krzysztof Zanussi in Warsaw. After the short video films Othello (1998) and King Lear (1999), he made the short film The Machine Is Here (Mashina prishla, 2001), screened at the IFF in Karlovy Vary. Sunless City (2005) is his feature debut.
Kino Plus
Bolshaya Morskaya 21 - 18, 191 186, St. Petersburg
Russia
Phone: +7 812 314 8703
Fax: +7 812 314 8703
E-mail: [email protected]
Vitali Potemkin
Production Company
Sergei Potemkin
Film Director, Film Director
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