Shultes

Russia

2008

100 Min

Color

1.85:1

Russian

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
1
2
3
4
5

DP Marina Gornostaeva, Nikolay Vavilov

CAST Gela Chitava, Ruslan Grebenkin, Lyubov Firsova, Cecile Plaige

PROD DES Kirill Shuvalov

Cannes (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs), London, Stockholm (Spotlight), Rotterdam (Bright Future), Locarno (I film delle giurie)

Synopsis

A once-promising athlete whose career was cut short due to a tragic injury turns to a life of crime, and receives an unusual gift that leads him to make a series of rash decisions. Lesha Shultes is only twenty-five years old, but his best days are already behind him. He was set to take the world of sports by storm when a serious car accident rendered him unable to compete on the playing field. Now, the only way Lesha can communicate with the outside world is by stealing. In between bouts of picking pockets on the streets, Lesha visits his ailing mother and his brother in the Army. Lesha has been effectively cut off from all human emotion. It’s only when he receives a video from a girl that he previously robbed that Lesha begins to feel something oddly familiar somewhere deep within.

Director

Bakur Bakuradze

Bakur Bakuradze is a film director born in 1969 in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. Before beginning his career in film he worked as an auto-mechanic and an economic engineer, in addition to serving in the Soviet Army from 1987 to 1989. He graduated from VGIK (Gerasimov All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow) in 1998, and began a career as a scriptwriter and assistant director, working on a range of narrative and documentary projects. In 2005, his documentary film The Diamond Path (Almaznii Put’) was named “Best Film about Business” at the Ukranian journalistic convention PRESSzvanie (PRESSrank). In 2006, his 35-minute narrative film Moscow won recognition at the Kinotavr Film Festival, and later was included in a screening of short films at the Cannes Short Corner, and in non-competitive screenings at international film festivals in Oberhausen (Germany) and Turin (Italy). In 2008 he completed work on his feature film Shultes, which went on to win the grand prize at the… read more

Wall

Displaying 3 wall posts.

see all

msmichel

22Apr11

Bleak and somewhat uninvolving. A pickpocket with an enigmatic tragic past is the focus of this russian picture. Film feels much more like Europeon art cinema with its long shots, little dialogue and bleak cold emotional lack. One really wonderful scene with a found camcorder recording that puts the film back on track to its natural conclusion. Cold, distant yet somewhat compelling.

Slowart likes this