The feature-length debut of Vsevolod and Konstantin Sinitsin is a film essay dedicated to the contemporary Russian art scene.
For several months in 2020, the filmmakers traveled to Russian cities, recording interviews with artists who participated in the 1st and 2nd Garage Triennials of Russian Contemporary Art. Snow in August, Rain in January is a collection of self-identification essays, the heroes of which call themselves bores and fast livers, reflect on labor and idleness, as well as on the ability to learn and unlearn. The camera follows the protagonists to their native and significant places (be it a studio, dacha, church, or cemetery), carefully picking up and extending their ideas, as if documenting the territory inhabited by art in the process: the Elektrozavod backyards and forests just outside Moscow, Krasnodar’s sleeping neighborhoods and the garden in the courtyard of the Nizhny Novgorod crematorium, the corridors of the phantom publishing house in Kaliningrad and the fields under Nizhny Tagil.
The film is part of Be Quiet, Louder—a documentary project exploring local artistic practices and communities.
The film stars: Misha Buryj, Ira Butkovskaya, Kirill Gluschenko, Alisa Gorshenina, Ivan Gorshkov, Alexander Danilov, Zina Isupova, Andrey Kuzkin, Anton Kushaev, Pavla Markova, Anton Morokov, Albina Mokhryakova, Mitya Pakhomov, Mika Plutitskaya, Karina Sadreeva-Nurieva, Artem Filatov, Julia Shafarostova.
Snow in August, Rain in January
Dir. Vsevolod and Konstantin Sinitsin
Russia, 2021. 67 min.