Ilya Khrzhanovsky

Alienated from the rest of the scientific Institute in which they live, a lonely housewife and her teenage son break the ultimate taboo, with only their submissive maid to bear witness.

Katya, a young librarian, believes in love, but her ideals are crushed by reality. After a string of disappointing affairs, Katya finally finds tenderness and understanding in the arms of her colleague, a journalist called Tanya. But then the First Department interferes: the state security services see this relationship as unacceptable for a Soviet woman.

Nazi troops massacre 30,000 Jews over a three-day period in September 1941. Babyn Yar ravine in Kyiv, Ukraine.

A mathematician in a secret Soviet research Institute believes that ayahuasca is the key to unlocking all the potential of the quantum universe, but its nightmarish visions also foreshadow his tragic demise.

Inspired by the life of Soviet physicists who created the atomic bomb, DAU tells the story of a brilliant Greek-born physicist living in the USSR from 1928 to 1968. Driven to understand the laws of the universe, Dau is soon forced to use his genius in service of the state and help create the deadliest weapon in history. In a secret research institute, everyday life is shaped by scientific dominance, power, surveillance and privilege. Increasingly stripped of his autonomy, Dau attempts to find freedom and happiness outside his marriage through an endless succession of affairs, ultimately losing both himself and his ability to love. Spanning four transformative decades, DAU is both an intimate portrait of one man and a monumental fresco of a society shaped by violence and ideology. It is a saga about the search for happiness, the price of freedom, and the countless everyday compromises that quietly shape both a human destiny and the course of history.

Maxim and his comrades-in-arms are participating in top-secret experiments into the creation of a new man. The employees of the secret Institute are characterised by everything Maxim detests: alcoholism, depravity, weak will, loss of ideals, and lack of faith in the future. Vika, one of the waitresses in the Institute's cafeteria, falls in love with the young communist, though she is scared by his fascination with eugenics and his violent tendencies. Vika hopes that her passion and tenderness will soften Maxim, while the state security agents keep a watchful eye on their developing relationship.

Once just a girl from the provinces, Nora is now married to a successful scientist and lives together with her family within the confines of a secret and privileged Moscow institute. Nora is visited by her mother for the first time since her wedding. Her mother closely observes the atmosphere within the couple's home, trying to work out whether her daughter is happy. During the course of their intimate conversations the complexity of their contradictory relationship is revealed.

Natasha runs the canteen at a secret 1950s Soviet research institute. This is the beating heart of the DAU universe, everyone drops in here: the institute's employees, scientists and visiting foreign guests. Natasha's world is a small one, split between the demands of the canteen during the day and alcohol fuelled nights with her younger colleague Olga, during which the two confide their hopes of romance and for a different future. At a party one evening Natasha becomes close to a visiting French scientist Luc Bige and the two sleep together. The following day her life takes a dramatic turn when she is summoned to an interrogation by the KGB's General Vladimir Azhippo who questions the nature of her relationship with the foreign guest.