20.11.2026 at 19:00. Echo: Ekaterinburg. Stay with Me a Little Longer, Me Too (Make Films), Kidnappers, Yeltsin Center

Description

Russian premiere

People land on an island and start searching. Their quarry, it turns out, is a herd of a prehistoric animal, the “ram-bull.” They pursue the beasts and shoot at them, but they are not hunters. From the wild herds they take only the young, pack them into crates, and carry them down to the shore. A boat rides at anchor, waiting for the catch.

About the director:

Aleksei Sukhovei

Director and cinematographer. He graduated from the Mozhaisky Military Space Academy as a systems engineer (2001), took the Editing course at VGIK’s cinematography faculty (2005–2006), and later studied at ‘Internews’ (documentary workshop by Arkady Kogan and Natalia Gugueva) and at the School of Film and Television (workshop by Marina Razbezhkina and Vladimir Fenchenko). His documentaries Guests (2015), Sophie’s Wedding (2018), and Promoting Success (2019) have screened at major non-fiction festivals, such as Flahertiana, Artdocfest, and Jihlava, and were included the longlist of the Lavr Award. The documentary series Orphans (2022) won the National Competition at the 32nd Message to Man IFF.

Description

The film’s central figure is an elderly woman living on Vasilyevsky Island — Inga Alexandrovna Balabanova. Through conversations with her we slip into her life and her past, which comes into view not as a footnote to a famous director’s career, but the story of a mother living on after her son. Memory takes her back to the days when he was simply Alyosha Balabanov, and to their family.

About the director:

Stasya Khomeriki-Granovskaya

Documentary director and author. Her debut, How Dina and I Went to Chelny, competed at Artdocfest in 2020. The next film, Stasya Is Me (2021), also screened in the festival’s competition. Both were nominated for the national Lavr Award in the Best Auteur Film category.

Description

World premiere

A novice documentarian wants a place at film school and sets out to shoot a study of an interesting person. Finding no one at 11 at night, she ends up at the Smolensk Cemetery, at Aleksei Balabanov’s grave. Trying to make a film of it, she comes away with a string of botched sketches: a couple on a first date; a painter who has spent years on a portrait of Balabanov;people who turn up to drink and argue about cinema. It was dark, the camera pointed the wrong way, she had promised not to show a thing, she walked out on her subject. Everything that mattered was not caught on camera, and so it was drawn.

About the director:

Anastasia Prasolova

Filmmaker. Born in Kurgan. She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at the Ural Federal University in 2013 and completed an MA in art criticism at the St. Petersburg State University in 2016. She has worked as a journalist and television producer. In 2025, she finished the DocFilmCommunity documentary workshop (tutor: Irina Buzina); in 2026, the School of Documentary Animation at the Rudnik Film Festival (curators: Dina Goder, Marina Razbezhkina). A working cut of her first feature, Leading Roles, received a Special Jury Mention “for people in the theatre and actors in life” at Freedoc Fest 2026 in Armenia.