ACID

Moscow as a vacuum. Petya and Sasha are best friends, but ever since a mutual acquaintance committed suicide while tripping, their relationship has been strained. The two belong to a seemingly lost generation of 20-somethings who immerse themselves in the here and now of the Russian capital and attempt to break out of their mind-numbing lethargy through partying, sex, consumer goods, drugs or self-harm. The church, the state, and especially their troubled parents are in no condition to serve as role models and have zero chance of reaching them anyways. Mischievous Petya and Sasha make short shrift of any sort of authority, appearing to see themselves as existing in a parallel universe, detached from reality and the consequences of their actions. Alas, they too are going to have to grow up eventually... With ACID, actor Aleksander Gorchilin has delivered his directorial debut. A member of artistic director Kirill Serebrennikov’s Gogol Center ensemble, Gorchilin opted to cast a whole host of his fellow ensemble members for ACID, and their energetic, highly physical performance styles translate fabulously to the big screen. The result is wild cinema of self-discovery, nihilistic and self-destructive.