A film actress and a migrant worker from Kyrgyzstan, who has fainted at her door, find themselves self-isolated in one St. Petersburg apartment. Grigoriy Dobrygin’s new film is a minimal and cleverly written comedy about closeness and alienation—the two notions that have acquired new meanings during the pandemic. Garage Screen summer cinema will show the film’s Moscow premiere, followed by a Q&A with its director Grigoriy Dobrygin, writer Anton Yarush, and production designer Andrey Ponkratov.
A food delivery courier, who has come to St. Petersburg from Kyrgyzstan for work, faints by the door of a designer flat that belongs to a famous actress (Ksenia Rappoport). The two have to isolate together until they get the confirmation that neither of them has Covid-19.
At Close Distance is a classical story of two very different people locked together in a small space. She is an actress, a star, and a celebrity, who is used to having her personal space to herself. He is a migrant worker who does not speak Russian and has his own ways of surviving in a big foreign city. The contrast and the almost wordless awkward communication between them create a fine absurdist drama—less about the fear of contact with the other than about the fear and the unwillingness of knowing oneself.
At Close Distance
Director: Grigoriy Dobrygin
Russia, Lithuania, 2021. 97 min. 18+