Joy

A young man named Kesha returns to his village after a long absence. He has completed a prison term but now simply wants to live a quiet, normal life. His younger brother, only 17, has plans for college. However, the brothers’ perspectives on the future shift dramatically when Kesha joins a gold-mining crew.

Two friends escape from the village to the city in search of a better life. However, finding your place in the city is not as easy as it seemed at first. After making several unsuccessful attempts to earn money and spending the last money on entertainment, the heroes begin to engage in petty crime, not realizing what this can lead to.

A young girl has newly arrived in Moscow, she has a baby, and is trying to figure out her life. She is in need of money and to make ends meet, she is willing to do any job.

In late nineteenth-century Yakutia, Habji and his wife Keremes have just buried their second child, and are preparing for a harsh winter of famine. Instead of giving them the help he promised, the local prince foists a Russian convict, Kostya, on the family, who the law decrees must live in the same house as them. They initially struggle to find a common language, and the convict soon decides that he will be the master of the house from now on.

Aital is the last in a long line of Sakha shamen, supporting his disabled brother by making house calls in the Sakha city of Yakutsk alongside his unscrupulous business partner. Disillusioned with his vocation, Aital dispenses more common sense advice than mystical succour to his clients, whose complaints range from impotence to demonic possession – but he is still haunted by the suspicion that there is something otherworldly at play. Vladimir Munkuev’s witty, humane take on the role of the supernatural in a disenchanted world demonstrates Sakha cinema’s deep concern for native traditions.