RUSSIA AS A PHANTASMA

A provincial portrait capturing Russia in all its laconic glory, surreality and brutality – the cinematic panorama of the tiny city of Kansk in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia. This anthology film features contributions by a total of twenty filmmakers from all over the world, all shot during the International Film Festival in Kansk. On the bus, on the city’s stages, in the canteen, in a birch grove: poetry is omnipresent. The figures in the film re-construct their own deaths, floating in a space between reality and dream. Short stories of individual people flow by, reflecting the totality of the disintegration of our civilization from the perspective of a surreal present. The diverse cinematic visions are united by a love of both freedom and this place, which possesses the magnetic attraction of an open (projection) surface and enchants and inspires anyone who has ever been there with its natural splendour and poetry. In Kansk, home to no more than 100,000 inhabitants, one senses the richness of Russia, which is capable of being grasped by natives and outsiders alike, though no one remains an outsider here for long. An extraordinary film about the hidden superpowers that international film festivals possess and a feast for the senses!