Darya Semyonova

A story of separation and reunion unfolding in an astronomers' village – a place where space isn't screened off by streetlights or the noise and bustle of the city.

Europe, 1709. Russia and Sweden are at war. Two French duelists are exiled by King Louis XIV of France: one to the side of Czar Peter the Great of Russia, the other to the side of King Charles XII of Sweden. Although separated by war and allegiance, fate has not finished with them.

Three short stories – "Irina", "Mitya", "Seryozha" – are three days from the life of a modern business woman, her adult son and her grandson, whose existence the father and grandmother find out only five years after his birth.

In present day Moscow three childhood friends in their forties - former school band players - live their everyday lives of a police officer, a taxi driver and a surgeon. They have lost track of each other. Three stories of betrayal, love and ageing are told in parallel. In fact, unknown to our heroes, their paths cross and their lives become connected. But they are not aware of it even when they reunite for a breaking performance at their graduation anniversary.

Estranged ex-lovers, Kostya and Kira are unexpectedly thrown together again when they're asked to collaborate as script-writers on a love-story set in a music school. The script focuses on teachers Rostislav (Dmitry Lysenkov) and Arina (Evgeniya Borzykh), who are caught-up in a difficult situation, made more complicated by Arina passing off a new colleague as her boyfriend to placate her demanding mother. The real and phoney relationships, both on and off-paper (or in reality or in the script), test all the characters, and examine themes of love, trust, sex, infidelity, friendship, responsibility as well as compatibility.