Dreaming of Space (2005)
"Kosmos kak predchuvstvie" (original title)

A story of a simple, naive Russian man Konek and the people around him: his love and her sister and a mysterious man. The film is set in 1957, time of changes, time of waiting for something big to happen.

Director:

Aleksey Uchitel

Writer:

Aleksandr Mindadze

Stars:

Yevgeny Mironov, Evgeniy Tsyganov, Irina Pegova

4 wins.

Cast

Credited cast:
Yevgeny Mironov	...	Victor 'Konyok'
Evgeniy Tsyganov	...	Gherman
Irina Pegova	...	Lara
Elena Lyadova	...	Rimma
Sergei Kachanov	...	Kirych
Mariya Kuznetsova	...	Victor's Mother
Dmitriy Mulyar	...	Yuriy
Elena Galibina	...	Waitress
Igor Shibanov	...	Efim
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Rinat Ibragimov
Olga Karlenko
Anatoly Kondyubov
Dmitriy Konokotov
Aleksander Kozhakin
Sergei Malakhov

Storyline

A story of a simple, naive Russian man Konek and the people around him: his love and her sister and a mysterious man. The film is set in 1957, time of changes, time of waiting for something big to happen.

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Plot Keywords:

space

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site [ru]

Country:

Russia

Language:

Russian

Release Date:

7 July 2005 (Russia)

Also Known As:

Dreaming of Space

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Studio Rock

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

User Reviews

Some Drama in Russian circa late 1950s

I saw this in the Toronto International Film Festival (2005) with the director present.

This is one of the few Russian movies I've ever seen and a strong contender for on of the best. I enjoyed it not only for the 'Russian perspective', but for the strong dramatic action in a well-told story.

The story revolves around a cook/boxer who lives near the Russian-Finnish border in 1957. A new and rather mysterious boxer in town brings some fresh techniques and perspective into the former's life starting a tale of intrigue (who is this guy), against the backdrop of the Soviet desire to launch satellites into space.

It's an overall upbeat tale in perhaps a less upbeat period of time, with some great boxing sequences (though it's not a boxing movie). The director mentioned it took 3 months to start the actors boxing training who had the coach from the Olympic team do the training. The comment was that had they taken up training earlier on, they would definitely be on the olympic team. That tells you how real the boxing scenes were, but also show the care that went into the overall production.

The movie has an engaging 'secret-service' suspensefulness, and its main characters come across as fun, real, and compelling. In addition, perhaps because of the 'Russian-ness' to this movie, the characters and the actors' portrayals as well as the style of the movie were rather unique (in a very positive way) -- further pulling me in to the screening.

Overall, this rates above average on my list of movies I've seen at the Toronto Film Festival.