AT A CLOSE DISTANCE

   Director Grigory Dobrygin.

The project was born in the midst of a pandemic as a reflection of new forms of coexistence. The plot is based on people from different worlds who ended up in the same apartment. A well-known actress in the past in the role of Ksenia Rappoport and Nurbol as the food delivery man. Since we are locked in one place for a considerable time, this allows us to examine it in more detail way and actively use close-ups as the method of shooting.

 The Actress's interior was initially planned as a classic apartment of the old St. Petersburg intelligentsia, we were looking for an interior in buildings of the beginning of the last century with high ceilings, stucco and fireplaces. But at some point we realized that this image was quite outdated and repeatedly used.

I wanted lightness, playfulness. The heroine's Italian past suggested us the direction. I remembered Memphis, a group of designers from the 70s who put art above functionality in design, even deliberately denying function. There is more lightness and mystery in this. The famous Casablanca shelving by Ettore Sottsassa set us this way. It contains the denial of the objective world and beauty, the desire to be someone else and, most importantly, loneliness. He stands like a mute figure, Inga's only companion. The miraculously found interior also helped us in this. It turned out to be a large upper floor of a new house, standing at the heart of the St. Petersburg's golden fund. According to the story, not only the heroes are forced to be neighbours, but also the windows of neighbouring houses surround them. Nurbol amuses himself by peeping into them.

 The Actress's interior was initially planned as a classic apartment of the old St. Petersburg intelligentsia, we were looking for an interior in buildings of the beginning of the last century with high ceilings, stucco and fireplaces. But at some point we realized that this image was quite outdated and repeatedly used.

There are directors who tell the story, and there are those who show. I have always aspired to the second. It seems to me that the second way of telling is more voluminous, more multivariate, there are no rigid definitions, each viewer puts together his own story.

 Director Grigory Dobrygin

 DOP Kxenia Sereda

 Production Designer Andrey Ponkratov

 Set Decorator and Props Alisa Solovieva