THE STOKER

 

director

Alexey Balabanov

cast

Mikhail Skriabin, Yuri Matveev,Alexander Mosin, Aida Tumutova,Anna Korotaeva, Vyacheslav Telnov

producer

Sergey Selyanov

production

Drama, 87 min, CTB Film Company Russia, 2010

оriginal title KOCHEGAR language Russian

 

 

synopsis

 

The film, set in the mid 1990s outside of St. Petersburg,tells the story of an ethnic Yakut, Major Skryabin, a shell-shocked veteran of the Afghan-Soviet War, who works as a stoker. Living in the incinerator room, the Major shovels coal all day, turning a blind eye to his former military comrade turned mobster, the Sergeant, who arrives to dispose of bodies. A deadly love triangle between the stoker’s daughter, the sergeant’s daughter and the hit man unites all the characters. As the stoker fills his time writing a novel about a Russian criminal sent into exile in Yakutia in the XIX century, a viewer sees that this movie is another allegory of the Russian history 

          

festivals & awards

Rotterdam IFF, Special Jury Prize, Prize of Russian Film Critics – Window to Europe 2010 Vyborg FF (Russia), Best Feature Film – Festival of Human Rights, Russia Stalker 2010, Best Film and FIPRESCI Award – Wiesbaden IFF, Best Feature Film, Best Director, Rotterdam IFF, Fribourg IFF