COUNTRYSIDE 35 X 45

The exact size of 35x45 mm is specified for the passport photographs needed for the new identity document the Russian authorities have made obligatory throughout the land. Lyutikov, a photographer commissioned with taking such photographs, catches a lot more than merely a likeness. His photographic portraits immerse the viewer in those stories that normally elude such images: the rheumatic knees of old ladies, the jacket lent by the photographer to young labourers, the bridal couples looking forward to a radiant future. The photographer records them all with an apparatus now serving the cause of the modernization of Russian civilization. The new document is a passport to modernity; without it, it will not even be possible to buy even a train ticket, or travel at all. Integrating the photographs in the portrait of an extraordinary landscape undergoing historical upheaval, the film shows one village-to-village expedition that represents the beginning of the journey into the brighter future. supposedly enabled by the new passport. But paper, as we know, is easily flammable. And what kind of destination beckons to people take who haven’t been paid for the past eight years?