Vanya is 12; he lives with his mum in a small village in the Kostroma Region and doesn’t know who his father is. Only once did his mum mention that he was in Moscow, working in a bank. Vanya and his friend Fedya do odd jobs at a local tyre-fitting shop, are fixing up an old motorbike, and dream of setting off for Moscow in search of his father. But when Vanya finally decides to go, he realises there’s no point, because his father lives right nearby.
"I was born in Moscow; my family—four generations—were involved in the theatre. My main window onto another world was the summer holidays: from the age of six, I would go with my parents every year to a village on the border between the Kostroma and Ivanovo regions. For many years, I observed the contrast between these worlds. And then I spent several years living between Moscow and Munich. These leaps from provincial towns near the Volga to Moscow, and then to Germany, along with the realisation of my attachment to home and my inescapable dependence on it – that is what lies at the heart of my films. Although it seems as though they are not really about that at all."
Klavdiya Korshunova
