Towards the Light

Set in Nizhny Tagil, Russia, Summer journeys nostalgically through the warm middle-Ural summer with eight-year-old Vadim and his half-sister Christina. They enjoy evening festivities with their older teenage friends by the fire, go on mellow skateboard rides, and have a quiet daytime nap in the garden house. Caressed by the sun and the warmth of his relatives, hidden in the quiet tranquillity of the garden and far away from the cruelty of the outside world, Vadim enjoys his childhood days. Acting as a serene lullaby that mimics the movements of a gentle breeze, Summer provides warmth, joy and solace, offering hope and strength for the future.

Middle Ural, winter. A time of silence and hibernation. The bright future is anticipated yet covered with a thick layer of snow, hidden by the blizzard. Spring and summer lie somewhere very far, beyond the obliterating winter.

Filmed in the latter half of summer, 2019, 'Narodnaya' follows the travails of a garage gallery opened by members of the Nizhniy Tagil underground as it prepares and hosts concerts and an exhibition, revealing in the process the philosophies and principles of the curators and artists who create this one-season gallery.

The film takes us to Nizhny Tagil in September of 2021. Gosha Gordienko, the front man of the rock band Lazy Comet, and Matthew Bedin came together to compose the song Ya Videl for the new album of the group, which wasn’t finished. The film is a memory, a gesture that against all odds reminds the true power and beauty of art creation.

An Ural city of Nizhniy Tagil. Summer is over and a ten years old Vadim is moving to a new district and attends a new school. The last warm days of September. Vadim is making his way through the fading rays of the autumn sun.

Errol and Sasha, two young women in their twenties, drift through their lives and the city. A study by fragments of existences waiting to happen.

Parisian interplay of light and water colliding with the unique textures of MiniDV

The sea, the cliffs, the boats. A couple of Russian friends come to visit the filmmaker in exile in France. Glimpsed in the distance or invading the screen – the shimmer of the waves is everywhere.

Shifting subtly between figuration and abstraction, with Rothko-esque golds and reds, the hypnotic En Traversée by prolific and steadfastly DIY filmmaker Vadim Kostrov evokes the poetry of dislocation by way of a world in motion.

The movie was shot at the junction of documentary and fiction films. The film takes the viewer into the late Ural summer of 2019 and immerses us in the real life of today's youth, with all its uncertainty, fragility, pain, despair and aspirations.

Shot in late August 2024 in Warsaw, Poland; Waning articulates the very essence of fleeting moments of Vadim Kostrov’s life captured in fading late summer light. By using the dispositif of miniDV, the film preserves glimpses of beauty and melancholy of finitude, reflected in fading and almost violent light. As a result, this silent construction of light and shadow—abstract and concrete at the same time—brings us to another realm, proposing the projection of pure impressions and fleeting moments, helping us to feel what the waning really is.

In Glimmering, Vadim Kostrov captures fleeting afternoon light in his backyard. Shot on miniDV and without sound, the film is a silent meditation on impermanence, where glimmers on leaves, fabric, and reflections become a visual poem on time, light, and transience.

On December 31, 2017, there were only a few hours left before the new year, and a friend of mine came to celebrate the new year with one "family" in the very center of the capital.. this film, shot spontaneously, sums up the results of 2017, informing and enclosing all the absurdity and absurdity of everything that is happening in our country.

A film must confront the world in which it is made, but also the one in which it is shown. When Vadim Kostrov accompanied young couple Katya and Kostya to a nearby lake, and filmed them with the directness for which he is known, he couldn’t foresee the political implications of these images. At the time Kostya was about to join the Russian military – a decision he came to regret later on. It’s breathtaking to witness the film’s playful innocence, while at the same time measuring every word against the destructive nature of war – yet the film outlines more than a political parable: Kostrov reflectively turns towards the few hours of light in the face of an impending darkness, which linger too briefly.

Few days, two concerts in the one night in the heart of the Moscow. Film-concert about Moscow's trip of the Nizniy Tagil's underground rock-group «lazy comet» in the end of the winter 2020th. The closing part of trilogy , which have started with «Narodnaya», where director Vadim, will be participate as vocalist. «Me, and my friends!»