Olga Shevchenko

Pale, thin, cold-sweating Pik (Khugaev) teaches literature at the local university to students so indifferent they play cards and take phone calls while he lectures. "The hell with you,” he says, walking out mid-class. It’s unclear just why Pik seems so sickly, though by midpoint we realize he’s a heroin addict in withdrawal. Broke, alienated, shunned by his dealer, he searches for a fix or any other salvation, sharing his bleak thoughts in voiceover. Attractive lensing and spare piano/ambient sound score abet the feature’s melancholy, meditative aura.

Erik is convinced he has a stone for a heart. That’s why he doesn’t mind that his parents have no time for him, or that he is bullied at school, or that he has no real friends. When his family moves to a villa they inherited, he is confronted by Maria whom Erik's parents want to kick out along with her father. Maria refuses to move and promises to make Erik's life a living hell. As a last attempt to defeat Erik, Maria goes to look for her mother who disappeared two years ago. Together they end up on a fantastical journey to the In-Between-World and Erik learns how hard it really is to wear a heart of stone.

Irina, a small-town nurse, has a heart defect. According to the doctors' prognosis, her heart has not much time left to beat, and there is no one to take care of her six-year-old daughter Anna. Irina feverishly tries to find a way out and she gets the idea that Anya could be brought up by her grandfather - the father of the young man who left Irina pregnant. All she knows about her daughter's grandfather, Igor Vasilyevich Kutepov, is that he is a rather successful businessman and 63 years old.