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.
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+