In Search of Happiness

Alexander Birgukov shot and killed his two commanding officers. He was sentenced to death but when it was alleged that one of his victims had sexually harassed him, his sentence was commuted to life in prison. Tenderly revealing two lives lived in limbo, this film bears witness to the first and final visit of his mother, Lubyov.

Based around the testimonies of four German women, this documentary details the abuse women suffered during after WWII at the hands of the Soviet forces, particularly during their forced labour.

The remote, abandoned, snow-swept Belarusian village of Lute. The last resident of this village, Valentina Kirillovna Shpakova, is celebrating the New Year.

The Russians left the small Turkmen village. What remains is an abandoned mine, an insane asylum and local residents surviving in the new post-Soviet reality.

At the cemetery of Armenian town Gjumry one can meet a teenage boy who works as a grave cleaner along with grownup colleagues.