The film follows the lives of two young women in Leningrad, following WWII. Tall and skinny Iya, who suffers from occasional spells, works as a nurse at a veterans hospital. Sometimes she takes along Pashka, the young son of her temperamental and unpredictable friend Masha, the stark opposite to seemingly passive Iya. The film is based on WWII accounts of Russian women, published in Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich’s controversial book The Unwomanly Face of War. After the success of his debut, Closeness, awarded at Cannes, young director K. Balagov’s second film proved his status as the critics’ favourite, winning Best Director and the FIPRESCI Prize in Un Certain Regard program at Cannes.

Subtitles: HR, EN