Semen Galperin

Petersburg. A Selfie comprises seven novellas about the beautiful city of St. Petersburg, Russia, shot by female directors. The film tells a story of a real, living and breathing city, rather than a mythical phantasm. Each novella tells its own story about love and loneliness, luck and hope.

Olga, Katya, and Andrey have known each other since childhood. They moved to Moscow many years ago and have become successful. Olga is an actress, Katya works for a large-scale PR agency, and Andrey is a political analyst. They buy cars, take mortgages, build country houses. Just like everybody else. But their lives bring them neither happiness nor content. The feeling of "something's not right but I can't put my finger on it" underpins the lives of today's thirty-year-olds. Their childhood took place during the Soviet era, when kids dreamed of becoming heroes, believed in spy stories and a bright future. Yet nobody expected that the dream of becoming a hero would be replaced by the dream of stable and predictable existence. People have stopped dreaming of truly grand things. They just play their roles.

A salesgirl at a grocery store recommends a sausage to a customer in such a sincere and humble way that he falls in love for her.