Stars and Thorns

What is a human brain? Is it just a part of central nervous system, super computer or master who controls human's life? Modern neuroscience researches will help us answer this questions.

2011-2012. Swamp area. Protesting moods. The 22-year-old Dasha goes to the polls - to the municipal deputies of the Brateevo district of Moscow. She is not a member of any party, and her electoral fund is 15,000 rubles, given by her mother. This is how Dasha begins his political career. Two years passed. Career is shaping up. What can not you tell about personal life: it seems that the family and political success for the girl are incompatible things ...

Alexey Trantsev and Alexey Mutin lost their hands as a result of an electrical injury. Years later, they mastered bionic prostheses and live like ordinary people. Only they sorely lack the ability to feel with their hands — to feel warmth, cold, water, or touch their beloved girlfriend. Meanwhile, scientists are developing a system for sensing hand prostheses.

Oil is a primary energy source in the world. Global oil consumption reached approximately 95 million barrels per day but oil fields' quality is constantly declining. A team of Russian scientists came up with more accurate, cheaper, and faster technology that can increase the oil production rate. After all, modern civilization is built in the way that 'to live well' means 'consume more oil'

The film is based on five cases of people with implants in the head. Against the backdrop of the growing popularity of the topic of “chipping” and fear of being controlled by artificial intelligence, filmmakers find five dramatic stories where the “chip in the head” is a vital necessity. With the help of implants, doctors cure deafness, remove tremor from patients with parkinsonism, stop epilepsy attacks and treat dystonia. Where can the scientific discoveries of the recent years lead us? Is it possible to control people with the help of technology and what neuroethical issues are encountered in its use?

In the land where, after the closure of the state farms, arable land has already become overgrown with birch forests, the farmer Valery Kravtsov is developing his small farm. Struggles for the harvest with bad weather, weeds and out-of-order technology. He gets up at 4 am to be at his "hacienda" at 5 already. He brings up his son, hoping that he will leave the farm for him. And gives the inhabitants of the deserted villages work and hope.

When Masha was ten years old she lived in a far away northern village, where she was the only pupil in her school. She loved her village - a quiet place without any stores, cell phones, and other spoils of civilization. Masha dreamed to build a clinic there. Masha is seventeen now. She goes to a boarding school in a nearby village, and realizes that she needs to leave.

They go out with slogans on streets, climb with flash-lights on the roofs, they want to be noticed. Why? They are 18-20 years old, they are in motion. What for?

At first glance, charity is easy: gather things, spend time, help with money. But it turns out, it's not easy when you are 17 and you are not ready to see lonely old age, poverty and disease. And when you realize that now you are there - in a nursing home - waiting, it becomes even more difficult.

The film is about volleyball coach Nikolay Karpole.

He went through the war from Leningrad to Germany. He was awarded two medals of valor and the Order of The Patriotic War of the 2-nd Class. Vladimir lives in a small village of the Irkutsk region. Sometimes he goes to the city to his son, grandson and great-grandchildren by the train. But sometimes there are the moments of silence to sit and remember all the living and the dead. And the more silence, the more the memories, the ghosts of war.

The hero of the film, the famous director, screenwriter, playwright Vasily Sigarev, tells stories from his life, which, when slightly transformed, become the stories of his plays. For the residents of his native Verkhnyaya Salda it's everyday. For the capital's theaters - an unprecedented reality of provincial life. For the audience - and laughter and horror. For the playwright - numerous prizes and endless pain.

The film tells about Aleksandr Khanzhonkov - the first Russian cinema producer and famous film maker of pre-revolutionary Russia.

Masha lives in a far northern village. At school one is studying - there are no more children in the village. In the village also there is no cellular communication, internet, shop and entertainment. But Masha loves her native places and dreams of opening a hospital in the village.

A recursion film where the search for a lost masterpiece of Soviet cinema becomes the starting point for the study of secret experiments and extreme human conditions, drawing authors and viewers into the abyss on the other side of the screen.