Strange Time

Blending dramatic situations with a documentary-influenced visual style, Happy Birthday looks in at a typical day in a Russian maternity hospital. The patients range from a middle aged woman pleased if surprised by her current pregnancy to a Muslim woman whose marriage to a Russian has blighted her relationship with her family. No matter what their situations, the women draw strength and support from each other as they share their common experience.

When a son from Chechnya calls his mother in Moscow and says that everything is fine with him, his mother abandons everything and rushes to find him. Svetlana feels that her Sasha is in trouble - you cannot fool her mother’s heart. Meanwhile, a forty-year-old woman who could not save her son from drugs was saved and warmed from the burning wounds of Chechen captivity by a runaway soldier ... Svetlana will do everything to hide her Sasha from this woman, someone else's misfortune and everyone who is next to him. But they will not give it to anyone - they have their own scores and their dreams with him ...

New Year’s Eve is filled with emotion in a communal Moscow apartment block.