Vitali AKIMOV
Виталий АКИМОВ
Vitali AKIMOV
Russia, 2020, 52mn 
documentary
A Boy
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Мальчик

 

 Un garçon

 Malchik

 
Directed by : Vitali AKIMOV (Виталий АКИМОВ)
Writing credits : Vitali AKIMOV (Виталий АКИМОВ)
Cinematography : Vitali AKIMOV (Виталий АКИМОВ)
Sound : Vitali AKIMOV (Виталий АКИМОВ)
Produced by : Vitali AKIMOV (Виталий АКИМОВ)
 

Plot synopsis
“My little boy looks just like me,” Slavik says lovingly to his son, who is holding the camera. “But without this belly.” The ex-convict is visiting a friend, with whom he listens to music, philosophizes about God, and drinks vodka.
Twenty-three-year-old Vitaly Akimov portrays his family in the shrinking Russian provincial town of Arsenyev. Ten-year-old Stepan, his brother’s stepson, acts as a guide to this grim environment, appropriately filmed in black and white. He strums his guitar, fetches water, or plays kindly with his little half-brother. He also witnesses another side of life. Slightly embarrassed, he gingerly walks around his stepfather sleeping off the drink, soaked his own urine on the kitchen floor. Stepan talks cheerfully about the horrific events of his life, or shares his deeper thoughts.
His spontaneity and Akimov’s playful camerawork bring a lightness and beauty to this tragic portrait of boys and men, fathers and sons—not necessarily in order of age.
http://www.film-documentaire.fr/
 

Commentaries and bibliography
Движение к свету: Мальчик Виталия Акимова [Critique du documentaire Un garçon, 2020, de Vitali AKIMOV], Дарья ЧЕРНОВА, kinoart.ru, 2020
 

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- Artdocfest in Armenia, Yerevan (Armenia), 2022
- Trieste Film Festival, Trieste (Italy), 2022
- Novaya Gazeta and Artdocfest Festival, On line (Russia), 2022
- DokuBaku IDFF, Baku (Azerbaijan), 2021
- Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Budapest (Hungary), 2021
- Message to Man : International Short, Documentary and Animated Film Festival, St Petersburg (Russia), 2021
- Award "White Elephant", Moscow (Russia), 2021
- Russian Film Week in London, London (United Kingdom), 2021
- Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival : IDFA, Amsterdam (Netherlands), 2020
- National Documentary Awards : Laurel, Moscow (Russia), 2020
- International Art Documentary Film Festival "Artdocfest", Moscow (Russia), 2020