Circling Within the Ring

A detective film with some serious depth. Called back from Moscow on a search for a missing person, this is a story of a man forced to plunge into the past, reminded at every turn of the previous life he led in Saint Petersburg. He must come to terms with the present to move forward - and on top of it all, he's not even sure he's awake. The over-arching presence of St Petersburg, sometimes benign, sometimes threatening, bears witness to his journey.

A group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, to find the right path to progress. Their task is a difficult one: they cannot interfere violently and in no case can they kill. The scientist Rumata tries to save the local intellectuals from their punishment and cannot avoid taking a position.

Russia 2017. The world could be on the verge of a great war. People are anxious that things could fall apart. Evolving around an unfinished building, a diverse group of outsiders struggle to find their place in this rapidly changing society, making up the mosaic of existence that is life itself…

Dovlatov charts six days in the life of a brilliant, ironic writer who saw far beyond the rigid limits of 70s Soviet Russia. Sergei Dovlatov fought to preserve his own talent and decency with poet and writer Joseph Brodsky, while watching his artist friends got crushed by the iron-willed state machinery.

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

An inquiry into the nature of identity, the inevitability of death, and the human condition in the twenty-first century.