Leonid Shmelkov’s mysterious and paradoxical animated film follows a man stuck in a provincial hotel whose guests start disappearing. The film was screened at the 47th Moscow International Film Festival and received a special mention at the Big Festival of Animated Films in 2025.
Yasha is driving a car with his friend asleep in the backseat. He turns onto a quiet country road, which runs amidst abandoned fields with flies swarming above them and eventually brings them to Rosa Hotel, where they stop for the night. The hotel is run by a lady known as Madam and its guests include a man who turns into a pyramid and a tiger casually drinking tea. In the morning, Yasha and his friend try to leave, but their satnav keeps failing, and strange obstacles rise on their path which eventually leads to a dead end. They have to come back, and find out that hotel guests keep disappearing.
The first feature-length animation by Leonid Shmelkov—the director of My Own Personal Moose (2014), which received an award at the Berlin Film Festival, and creator of Andrei the blue dog in a hoodie popular on social media—Restlessness is assembled from fragments of the real world. What we see on screen is a metaphorical Tver Oblast with familiar willows and hogweed and characters who play, dance, run, wait for something, and disappear. As captivating as it is confusing, the film marries Shmelkov’s unique visual style and narrative with music by Sergey Kuryokhin performed by Alexei Aigui and the 4’33″ ensemble.
Restlessness
Director: Leonid Shmelkov
Russia, 2025. 90 min.
18+