1945, Leningrad. Iya suffers from post-concussion syndrome after fighting on the frontlines during the Siege. Now a nurse in a musty Leningrad hospital that heaves with death, she’s prone to sudden fits of paralysis; her muscles freeze, her voice is swallowed by a feeble croak, and her long alabaster body is no longer under her control. Inspired by Svetlana Alexievich’s book “The Unwomanly Face of War,” Balagov tells a brutal and achingly beautiful story about two women who grow so desperate for any kind of personal agency that they start using each other to answer the unsolvable arithmetic of life and death.
About the film
Details
- Running time
- 2 hr. 10 min.
- Country, year
- Russia, 2019
- Genre
- Drama, History
- Language
- Russian
- Subtitles
- Lithuanian, English
- Age rating
- N-16
Credits
- Director
- Kantemir Balagov
- Screenplay
- Kantemir Balagov, Aleksandr Terekhov
- Producers
- Natalia Gorina, Sergey Melkumov
- Cinematography
- Kseniya Sereda
- Music
- Evgueni Galperine
- Cast
- Viktoria Miroshnichenko, Vasilisa Perelygina, Konstantin Balakirev
- More information
- www.imdb.com
Festivals and awards
- Un Certain Regard Best Director Award · FIPRESCI award
Director
Kantemir Balagov
Kantemir Balagov is a Russian director, screenwriter and cinematographer. In 2017, he made his debut as a director with the feature film Closeness in the program Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, where he received the prize FIPRESCI. Beanpole is his second feature film.
